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Tag: Second Amendment

‘I’m not running for me’: The everyman challenging Boesenecker in HD53
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

‘I’m not running for me’: The everyman challenging Boesenecker in HD53

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Daniel Frick did not like politics growing up. He thought it was drama and theater, the same way, he figures, most people do. Then his stepdaughter was hit by a car and left permanently disabled, and the family found itself in what he calls the dark corners of the state, where her case sat forgotten. Now he is a Republican running for Colorado House District 53, a Democratic-held Fort Collins seat. By Frick's telling, the district has been blue since 1986. "I'm not running for me. I'm running for Carissa," Frick said. "I'm fighting for Carissa. That's what this whole campaign is about, getting justice, holding people accountable and changing our state's political system so that other people don't end up like Carissa an...
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If they control your ammunition, they control your rifle
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

If they control your ammunition, they control your rifle

By Sean M. Pond | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice If you hunt, own a gun, raise livestock or care about the Second Amendment, you need to pay attention to what is happening at the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission. The people coming after hunting have found an easier path than convincing Colorado voters. They can take a so-called citizen petition to an appointed commission and ask that commission to regulate hunters out of the field. They do not have to ban your rifle if they ban the ammunition it fires. That is exactly what one petition now before the Commission is designed to do. The proposal seeks a statewide ban on traditional lead ammunition while taking wildlife. It was filed by 18 organizations and presented by attorneys for Animal Wellness Action and ...
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Federal Judge Pauses Boulder County Gun Ban Case Pending Supreme Court Ruling
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Federal Judge Pauses Boulder County Gun Ban Case Pending Supreme Court Ruling

By Michael Karlik | Colorado Politics A federal judge agreed on Friday that she would await the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in an upcoming Second Amendment case before she addresses the constitutionality of similar gun ordinances in multiple Boulder County jurisdictions. Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, the National Association for Gun Rights, and several individual Coloradans filed suit in 2022 over local firearms ordinances that generally prohibited the sale, transfer, and possession of large-capacity magazines and semi-automatic guns deemed “assault weapons,” with some variation. As defendants, they named the town of Superior, the cities of Louisville and Boulder, and Boulder County. In July 2025, U.S. District Court Judge Nina Y. Wang clarified which claims could ...
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Gun rights and Phil Weiser: an answer that stops at Heller
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Gun rights and Phil Weiser: an answer that stops at Heller

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Does current Attorney General (and candidate for governor) Phil Weiser know there’s been more gun control decisions past Heller? After reading about a curious statement AG Weiser made during the 8/27 gubernatorial debate. That debate in full is linked below. The remarks I reference relate to gun control and begin at about the 52:40 mark in the video when candidate Weiser was asked (quoting from the transcript): “Any laws the legislature has passed you disagree with, and does the state need to go further?” Candidate Weiser goes on to equivocate for some time before pausing and allowing one of the moderators to come back with a follow up, get an actual answer to the question. “And I’ll give you 30 seconds,...
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Colorado Governor Debate Draws Sharp Divide on Gun Rights, Housing Costs, and Peters Commutation
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado Governor Debate Draws Sharp Divide on Gun Rights, Housing Costs, and Peters Commutation

By Deborah Grigsby | Colorado Politics Two of the candidates for Colorado governor squared off in a televised debate on Thursday night, when Attorney General Phil Weiser, the Democratic nominee, and former U.S. Rep. Greg Lopez, an unaffiliated candidate, delved into issues of affordability, data center regulation and gun laws. The debate’s tone was civil. The policy differences between the two were palpable. Both candidates called out Republican nominee Victor Marx, a ministry leader and first-time candidate who declined to participate in the debate On housing, Weiser argued that building more “starter” homes and lowering the barriers to buying them is the right approach. Along with bumping Colorado’s supply of owner-occupied housing by 40,000 by 2035, he proposed c...
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Gaines: Why the Rodney King-era law fits Colorado’s gun fight
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Gaines: Why the Rodney King-era law fits Colorado’s gun fight

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project The DOJ using the Civil Rights Division to sue Colorado and Denver over its magazine ban.  The Rocky Mountain Voice article at bottom details how the Department of Justice is using its Civil Rights Division, along with a novel use of a civil rights law passed back during the Rodney King Era to sue Colorado and Denver over their magazine ban and “assault weapons” ban, respectively. A quote from the piece fleshes this out some:“The law driving both lawsuits came out of the aftermath of Rodney King. Congress passed §12601 in 1994 after Los Angeles erupted in riots, giving the federal government authority to intervene when police departments repeatedly violated constitutional rights. DOJ has used the law fewer than ...
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Three federal cases test whether Colorado treats gun rights as policy or as a limit on government
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Three federal cases test whether Colorado treats gun rights as policy or as a limit on government

By C. J. Garbo | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado has spent more than a generation treating the Second Amendment as a public-policy question. That is the first mistake. The Bill of Rights does not identify subjects upon which government may act whenever legislators believe their intentions are sufficiently benevolent. It identifies areas in which governmental power is constrained. The distinction is fundamental. A constitutional right does not exist at the pleasure of a legislative majority, nor does its force rise and fall with polling, tragedy, political fashion, or the confidence of public officials in their own judgment. This is particularly important when discussing firearms because the Second Amendment was never merely an eighteenth-century hunting prov...
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Federal Court Weighs Fate Of Colorado’s Three-Day Gun Purchase Waiting Period
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Federal Court Weighs Fate Of Colorado’s Three-Day Gun Purchase Waiting Period

By Michael Karlik | Colorado Politics A federal judge heard arguments on Monday about the constitutionality of a 2023 Colorado law that generally imposes a three-day waiting period on firearm purchases after the initiation of a background check. The test that the U.S. Supreme Courtcreated in 2022 for assessing firearm regulations’ compliance with the Second Amendment occurs in two phases. First, judges must determine if the constitutional text applies to the regulation at issue, and then the government must show that the policy is consistent with similar regulations throughout the country’s history — in particular, around the time of the Second Amendment’s adoption. “The first ‘cooling off’-style waiting period did not come into existence until the ...
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Three laws, one result: A federal suit says Colorado and Denver leave some visitors no way to carry
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Three laws, one result: A federal suit says Colorado and Denver leave some visitors no way to carry

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice He says he passed a background check stricter than Colorado's. He holds a carry permit that is good in more than 30 states. He owns a second home in Weld County. And when Greg Howeth applied for a Colorado permit this spring, a Weld County employee called to tell him no — because he does not have a Colorado ID. That denial, delivered by email on May 28, is now Exhibit 2 in a federal lawsuit against the City and County of Denver, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, and five other officials.  Howeth, a South Carolina man named Zackary Dougherty, and the National Rifle Association filed the case in U.S. District Court in Denver on Aug. 12. Their claim is not that any single Colorado law is unconstitutional. It ...
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Federal Court Asked to Block Colorado’s New Semiautomatic Firearm Requirements
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Federal Court Asked to Block Colorado’s New Semiautomatic Firearm Requirements

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics The Colorado chapter of the National Rifle Association is seeking an injunction to stop the state from enforcing a new law that took effect earlier this month. The new law requires anyone buying or selling certain firearms to first complete a safety training course offered through Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Under Senate Bill 003, the course is mandatory for anyone planning to purchase a semiautomatic rifle, shotgun or handgun with a detachable magazine. The Colorado State Shooting Association had filed a lawsuit last September, challenging the law’s constitutionality and arguing it places “unlawful burdens on the rights of law-abiding Coloradans.” “A government that makes you ask permission to buy a firearm ...
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