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Travis's avatar

If you're wondering how high-capacity magazines are still being purchased/owned in Colorado, here are the loopholes:

1) They only apply to magazines purchased/sold after 2013, so if you owned them prior to 2013 then you're grandfathered in

2) Cops don't really have a way of telling whether or not you purchased them prior to 2013, so point 1 is kind of moot because you can just say "I've owned these since 2012" so long as you lived in CO at that time

3) You can always cross state lines, buy high-cap magazines there, and then bring them back into CO and just tell any cops who ask that you've owned them since 2012

4) Stores are allowed to sell "magazine repair kits" which are basically all the parts one would need to assemble a high-capacity magazine without actually selling an assembled high-capacity magazine

CO is on the cusp of passing an assault weapons ban come July--it's already through the house, but so long as you've purchased your "assault weapon"--a vaguely-defined term--prior to the ban taking effect then you're grandfathered in as well and your AWs are good to go. As you can guess, local gun shops here have never been busier selling AWs as Colorado folk are buying them up in droves.

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Tim Miller's avatar

depressing

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Travis's avatar

This whole national trend of AW ownership really goes back to a combination of two things for me: the sunset provision in the '94-'04 national AWB that was allowed to expire combined with the War on Terror that kicked off in late '01. It made owning an AW the "cool thing" at a time when national xenophobia and military/veteran-worship was on the rise. I don't think you get to where we are on national AW ownership without those dynamics present.

Worth noting that the national AW ban was in effect when Columbine happened and the perpetrators still got their hands on them via illegal straw buys at the Tanner Gun Show. The same could be said of the North Hollywood Shooting of '97--google that one because holy shit--and the DC Sniper(s) of '02 who used a Bushmaster AR-15.

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