Colorado may be seeking to take the lead in the national gun control debate. On Monday, a suite of four progressive gun limitation bills passed the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives and is heading to the Colorado Senate, where the vote could be tight, but favors passage.
“I know they’re coming, and I strongly suspect they’ll get passed,” Senate President John Morse, (D-Colorado Springs) said of the bills. “But there’s still a long way to go and a lot of conversation to be had.”
The four bills that passed the House were: a limitation of gun magazines to 15 rounds, a requirement of background checks for all gun transactions, a ban on concealed weapons on college campuses and the imposition of a fee on gun buyers to cover the cost of their background checks. All of the House’s Republicans voted against these bills.
The Democrats control the House 37-28 and the Senate 20-15.
As pointed out by the Denver Post, even with these new laws in place, Colorado will be far from the most strict state in regards to gun law. California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts all have harsher gun control laws. The Law Center to End Gun Violence currently gives Colorado a D, based on a 2012 analysis of the state’s gun laws — this ranked the state 22nd out of the 50 states.
The new bills would theoretically raise that score to a C minus, said Benjamin Van Houten, managing attorney for the San Francisco-based advocacy group.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has formally opposed all four bills. “They are four anti-gun bills that would severely restrict your rights to keep and bear arms in Colorado,” said NRA spokeswoman Stephanie Samford. “Limiting the magazines to an arbitrary number serves no purpose other than to stifle the rights of law-abiding citizens.”
Rep. Dan Pabon (D-Denver) has asserted that Colorado is not trying to take leadership in the gun debate, but is responding to the 1999 Columbine High massacre and the 2012 “The Dark Knight Rises” shooting in Aurora. “We are responding to Colorado’s concerns,” Pabon said. “Those concerns are different than the national sentiment … We have a unique relationship with guns, and it is important that we be deliberate and to craft legislation that makes sense for Colorado.”
The significance of Colorado as a counterpoint to the national trend, however, was made stronger when Colorado signed an agreement that limited the role of law enforcement on city school campuses. As part of a commitment by the city to break the “school-to-prison pipeline,” the Denver Police, the 84,000-student municipal school district, and community-based parent and youth group, Padres y Jóvenes Unidos, formally set the demarcations of school and police authority.
This is in direct contrast to the national trend of adding police officers to schools. The new rules dictate that the 15 school-based police officers in the Denver system must be specifically trained for their positions, that disciplinary issues must be handled solely by school authorities and that the school-based officers must work to defuse situations, instead of blindly arresting and/or ticketing.
The school-based officers must also question students at a time that minimizes the effect on schooling and meet with the school principal three times a year for training. In addition, the school will move away from suspensions and expulsions and move toward restorative justice practices, such as having students do community service in redress for violations.
Community police are, however, encouraged to have a greater benevolent role in school communities. Officers are encouraged to do paperwork at a school playground or parking lot, instead of at the station, on the side of a road or in a restaurant. The idea is to reintroduce the police in a non-threatening way. “The kids get to see us in a new light. We’re not showing up after something bad has happened,” said Sgt. Chris O’Neal of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department south of Denver.