Well, folks, Colorado just made it a whole lot harder to buy an AR-15. As of today, if you live in the Centennial State and want to purchase the most popular rifle in America, you're looking at a whole lot more time, money, and government red tape.
Here's the deal: anyone wanting to buy a so-called "assault weapon" now needs a Firearms Safety Course Eligibility Card from their local sheriff. If you've already taken a hunter safety course in the last five years, great — you only need an additional four hours of training. Haven't done that? Well, now you're looking at twelve hours of classroom and range time before you can even think about buying a rifle.
And the costs just keep piling on. I'm seeing 4-hour courses around $125 and the full 12-hour course for about $249. That's on top of your background check, whatever fee the county charges to issue the card, and Colorado's lovely 11% excise tax on firearms and ammunition. Because apparently the government can't get enough of your money.
But here's what really gets me: there's no deadline for sheriffs to issue these cards. None. Zip. They can just make you wait indefinitely. And the language in the law lets sheriffs deny applications if they have a "reasonable belief" the applicant might be dangerous — which is basically a may-issue licensing scheme, and the Supreme Court has already said those are unconstitutional.
There's also a backlog of over 2,500 background checks waiting to be processed, so good luck getting through the process anytime soon.
Coloradans have had about a year to prepare, and gun sales have been through the roof as people tried to get ahead of this mess. But now the hammer has dropped, and we're looking at a serious barrier to exercising our Second Amendment rights.
The scary part? This permit-to-purchase scheme is probably what anti-gunners will push nationwide if the Supreme Court strikes down "assault weapon" bans. Colorado is the test case, and gun owners everywhere should be paying attention.