A Colorado judge has blocked Boulder’s two-year-old ban on high-capacity assault weapons and magazines earlier this month – less than two weeks later, ten people were killed in a mass shooting at one of the city’s supermarkets. According to the affidavit, investigators determined that the suspect, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, purchased an assault rifle on March 16, 2021.
Andrew Hartman, District Court Judge in Boulder County, ruled on March 12 that the 2018 ban, which prohibits the possession, sale or transfer of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines (LCMs), is invalid because it violates state law.
“The court finds that the ban on the possession, sale and transfer of assault weapons is enforced because it materially impedes the state’s interest in the regulation of firearms, and prohibits what the state’s legislation authorizes,” reads the ruling of Hartman. He pointed to the statement of the state legislature that the regulation of firearms is a state interest, to prevent a patchwork of inconsistent local laws involving firearms, and to best protect Coloradans.
“The court finds that the need for uniforms across the country benefits the state’s interest in regulating assault weapons and LCMs,” Hartman wrote. “Direct uniformity in regulations prohibiting the possession and transfer of assault weapons and LCMs is consistent with the legislature’s stated interest in protecting citizens’ fundamental right to bear arms and consistent criminal proceedings.”
Lawyers for Boulder argued that the city ordinance was necessary because state law does not address high-capacity assault weapons and magazines. Hartman ruled that the failure was intentional – he mentions other weapons that were banned under the legislation – and therefore he chose not to include assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.
“The General Assembly has introduced a comprehensive scheme that regulates firearms and ammunition … which includes the ban on magazines that can accept more than 15 rounds,” he wrote. “The fact that assault weapons are clearly excluded from the list of ‘dangerous and illegal weapons’ and therefore are not prohibited under Colorado law indicates an intent to legalize the possession of assault weapons in Colorado in light of the comprehensive nature of the Firearms Scheme and the ban on LCMs accepting more than 15 rounds. “
Boulder’s ordinance banned ammunition magazines that could contain more than ten rounds.
Authorities on Tuesday identified the ten people who were killed during the shooting at the King Soopers grocery store. The victims ranged in age from 20 to 65.
According to Police Chief Maris Herold, Alissa, a 21-year-old man from Arvada, Colorado, is charged in the first grade with ten counts of murder. According to law enforcement databases, investigators determined that Alissa purchased a Ruger AR-556 pistol on March 16, 2021, according to the affidavit for the arrest warrant.
“This may not be our new normal … we need to see a change because we have lost far too many lives,” Congressman Joe Neguse told a news conference on Tuesday.
Former Boulder councilwoman Jill Adler Grano, who introduced Boulder’s ban on assault weapons and now works as director of community affairs for Neguse, said at the time that the city’s ordinance was in an effort to prevent mass tragedies, such as those in neighboring cities. Columbine and Aurora.
“I do not consider it a waiver of the rights to the Second Amendment,” Grano was quoted as saying by Complete Colorado. “The Second Amendment does not protect assault weapons. There have been hundreds and hundreds of mass shootings in America. This is a preliminary proposal. I think it’s time to say enough, not in the city of Boulder.”
The National Rifle Association has issued a festive press release after Boulder’s assault weapon ban was lifted. The organization’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ISA) supports the case.
“The city council should have listened to the city attorney. His repeated attempts to warn them that they do not have the power to enforce these ordinances are mentioned throughout in the opinion.” The opinion was also written very thoroughly and thoughtfully, which it will make it even harder to stop if the city appeals against it. “
The NRA said Boulder’s loss should be used as a precedent against other cities “that are considering enacting any similar counterproductive ordinances.”
Assault weapons were banned across the country for ten years under the Protection of Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Act, commonly referred to as the Prohibition of Attack Weapons, until 2004. Congress failed to authorize the ban. Many states have since adopted their own weapon for assault weapons, some stricter than the federal ban.
President Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee when Congress passed the ban. He writes in a 2019 New York Times opinion that if he is elected president, he will push to ban them again.
“Assault weapons – military firearms designed to fire quickly – are a threat to our national security, and we must treat them as such,” he said. Biden written. “Anyone who pretends that there is nothing we can do is lying – and to consider it must disqualify it for anyone who wants to lead our country.”
Monday’s tragedy in Colorado is the second mass shooting since Mr. Eight people are dead shot last week in three spas around Atlanta, Georgia.
The president on Tuesday called for support for a ban on assault weapons, and called on the Senate to immediately pass legislation from the House to close loopholes in the background. “We have to act,” he said.
California Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was an architect of the original ban, asked for it to be re-approved and updated. She noted during a hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Gun Violence Tuesday that the Colorado shooter used an AR-15, which was also used in recent mass shootings in Las Vegas, Nevada, Dayton, Ohio, Parkland, Florida , and Sandy Hook Elementary.
She also pointed out that violent gun killings dropped by 37 percent during the ten-year ban, but there was an 183 percent increase in massacres in the ten years after the ban expired.
“Our whole heart goes out to all the families who lost a loved one yesterday, and the law enforcers who are risking their lives,” Feinstein said. “But it does not cure the problem.”
In response to Feinstein’s call for a renewed federal assault gun ban, Republican first-year Congresswoman Lauren Boebert tweeted on March 14, two days after Boulder’s ordinance was abolished, that ‘any politician who should ban guns should insist that their safety was also disarmed. ‘
Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis said Tuesday that the public should not accept Monday’s massacre as “normal.”
“It has been a painful year. And we are sitting here again, surrounded by seemingly incomprehensible, senseless loss,” he said. “It’s a pain we have to sit with. We can never let ourselves be numb to the pain because we simply can not allow it to be accepted as something that is close to normal appearance.”