Colorado gun owners will face a convoluted licensing scheme beginning in August to purchase some of America’s most popular rifles.
In April 2025, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed legislation that requires anyone wishing to buy a modern semiautomatic firearm, including the AR-15 rifle, to first receive a firearms safety course eligibility card, then to complete a firearms safety course within five years. The legislation passed after being changed from an outright ban on so-called “assault weapons” that passed in other Democratic-controlled states like California, New Jersey and Virginia.
“This legislation is another in the list of policies I have worked on to develop evidence-based solutions and reduce gun violence of all types,” Democratic state Sen. Tim Sullivan claimed in an April 2025 release. “The people of Colorado have mandated that we do something about the public health crisis that is gun violence, so that’s what we’re going to do.”
A 152-page draft document featured hundreds of photos of modern semi-automatic firearms, some of which have been out of production for decades, as examples of the guns to be regulated under the law.
Colorado passed a ban on standard-capacity magazines holding more than 15 rounds of ammunition in 2013, months after a mass shooting in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater. The state has received high grades from Everytown and Giffords Law Center for its laws, while the Trump administration sued Denver over its outright ban on modern semiautomatic firearms and took the state to court over its magazine ban.
“Throughout the country, progressive politicians like Governor Polis are doing everything they can to limit lawful citizens’ access to their constitutional rights,” John Commerford, NRA-ILA Executive Director, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The Polis permission slip is not about safety; it’s about punishing law-abiding citizens with a lengthy and arduous training program chock full of anti-gun propaganda. While citizens who want to follow the law must jump through bureaucratic hoops to exercise their rights, criminals will continue to ignore these laws and wreak havoc on Colorado communities.”
Some pro-Second Amendment advocates suspect this legislation could be copied by other states if litigation on outright bans of modern semi-automatic firearms were invalidated on Second Amendment grounds by the Supreme Court.
“I suspect much like post-Bruen where all the states said, OK, we have to give carry permits to everyone, fine, we will, but here’s a list of places you can’t carry, which is everywhere, I suspect you’ll see all the blue states implement this kind of stuff where they’re gonna say you need a permit to purchase and some kind of training,” Second Amendment Foundation Executive Director Adam Kraut told the DCNF. “I suspect that’ll be their fallback position.”
“Count on it: the same depraved tyrants who built today’s gun-control machine will keep evolving their schemes to preserve the police state they want us to live in. Colorado’s new regime proves the point,” the Firearms Policy Coalition said about the law. “Liberty is a commitment, not a destination-and the FPC Grassroots Army will keep fighting until every one of these immoral laws is destroyed.”
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