Colorado’s Democratic-controlled House on Sunday passed a bill that would ban the sale and transfer of semiautomatic firearms, a major step for the legislation after roughly the same bill was swiftly killed by Democrats last year.

The bill, which passed on a 35-27 vote, is now on its way to the Democratic-led state Senate. If it passes there, it could bring Colorado in line with 10 other states — including California, New York and Illinois — that have prohibitions on semiautomatic guns.

But even in a state plagued by some of the nation’s worst mass shootings, such legislation faces headwinds.

Colorado’s political history is purple, shifting blue only recently. The bill’s chances of success in the state Senate are lower than they were in the House, where Democrats have a 46-19 majority and a bigger far-left flank. Gov. Jared Polis, also a Democrat, has indicated his wariness over such a ban.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    You can’t just make everything except bolt-action rifles illegal.

    Britain did.

    And if we’re going on the intent of the founders, they mostly had muzzle-loaders in mind. They certainly didn’t consider automatic weapons able to fire huge amounts of bullets extremely quickly.

    • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Britain doesn’t have a 2nd Amendment.

      Now, if you want to repeal it, sure, there’s a process for that…

      Start by getting 290 votes in the House. The same body that struggles to get a simple 218 vote majority to decide who their own leader is.

      Then you get 67 votes in the Senate. The same body that struggles to get 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

      Then, assuming you get all that, you need ratification from 38 states. In 2020, Biden and Trump split the states 25/25. So you need ALL the Biden states (good luck getting Georgia!) and 13 Trump states. For every Biden state you lose, you need +1 Trump state.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Unless you just have a sensible court that don’t claim to be “Originalists” while at the same time ignoring the fact that the arms the founders were think of were not ones that didn’t exist at the time.

        • MorrisonMotel6@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          Email and Twitter didn’t exist at the time either, but they are still protected under the First and Fourth Amendments. Cell phones with unlock codes didn’t exist, but they’re still covered under the Fourth Amendment That’s a spurious argument that holds zero merit.

          The Second Amendment might not be something you like, but modern firearms are ABSOLUTELY covered. The second amendment must be altered or removed from the Constitution to come even close to what you’re asking. And that process was explained to you up the thread a little

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            And yet “originalist” judges say that we need to consider what the founders meant. Except, apparently, when it comes to one half of one amendment.

        • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Well, then you need to spend 50 years dedicated to changing the makeup of the Court the way the Republicans did with Roe… see you in 2074! Well, not me PERSONALLY, but you get the idea. ;)

    • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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      8 months ago

      Was discussing this recently. A big bit of context that is important is how the founders intended for the military to be organized for their fledgling nation. Their intent was that there be no standing army because all of the powers that they knew that had them used them for imperialism and tyranny. So, the intent was to prevent states from getting in the way of raising regular (trained and uniformed) and irregular (anyone who could shoulder a musket) militia, should it be necessary to defend the nation against an incursion from a hostile power.

      Now, it’s been well over a hundred years since the US has had a standing army. While that does not technically invalidate the Second Amendment, it does make it an anachronism that doesn’t fit in the context of the modern world. It should have been re-legislated as soon as a standing army became a thing.

      Now, if only there were a mechanism built into the US Constitution to allow it to be updated to fit the needs of the nation. Maybe they could have called them “Changements”. /s

    • thejynxed@lemmy.basedcount.com
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      8 months ago

      They certanly did, as Thomas Jefferson owned two of them, each carrying 35 rounds of .29mm. One is on display at Monticello, the one he lent to the Lewis & Clark Expedition that was used to successfully defeat a 50-man raiding party, is kept at The Smithsonian.