Unintended Consequences of Colorado’s New Gun Laws

I believe you can still get 15 round flush fit mags for the CZ-75 variants. Guess that is what they will have to be sold with in CO at least for now.

The Mec Gar mags are excellent, as are the CZ factory mags which I believe are also made my Mec Gar.

not unintended

#1) Reduced capacity mags will be sold with the gun, or no mags at all... Expect to pay a premium for compliance since somewhere along the line someone had to open the box and swap things around.
#2) The mags left your possession. They are now trash. Hope you kept some mags at home or can track down some reduced ones. You cannot even sell them for scrap as that is a transfer.

As far as #3, if the reason you are getting the gun is for the mag capacity then it is pretty pointless. If you are getting it for other reasons then maybe not so much.

These effects were absolutely intentional. The number of handguns that would have been affected is why it got bumped from 10 to 15. Couldn't be passed when it affected most handguns on the market.

Couldn't be passed when it affected most handguns on the market.

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Maybe they didn't have the votes this time, but I'm sure that's in the planning for the next reasonable gun law. For the children.

HankR said:

Maybe they didn't have the votes this time, but I'm sure that's in the planning for the next reasonable gun law. For the children.

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I wonder what they will conjure up next time...One bullet per month and one pistol per year....

Trunk Monkey:

Assuming you are in the Denver area, follow these simple instructions:

1) Drive I-25 northbound
2) Drive I-76 east
3) Take a left on U.S Route 6 near Sterling
4) Take a right on U.S. Route 138 shortly thereafter
5) Now a left on CO 113, which turns into NE 19
6) Drive about ten miles until you get to Cabela's
7) Buy what you want
8) Go home by reversing the above route (per Mapquest)


The whole exercise will cost you less than a tank of gas, and about 6 total hours of your time


(Seriously though, I feel your pain... Just sayin')

Just make sure all your mags over 15 rounds were bought prior to July 1st. Just sayin.

Still a ton of +15 magazines on Colorado's ArmsList pages. Many were posted yesterday in fact. I pulled all of mine though. No reason to believe that there won't be a few stings made through these type of ads.

http://www.armslist.com/classifieds/colorado/magazines

Living in Texas, I haven't been following the Colorado laws that much, but as I understand it, you can bring the mags, into the state, but you just can't buy, sell or otherwise transfer any. Nothing, as far as I know, sez you can't drive out of state and buy as many as you want.

In 1975 Mass. passed some draconian laws for taxes on tobacco. Those of us living close to New Hampshire would drive up and buy all the smokes we wanted. The Mass. state police would be waiting for us &confiscate the tobacco. They ended up in a Federal Lawasuit and lost,. Court sed they couldn't do that.

Same thing applies here, I believe.

Am I right?

The law says you have to possess them before July 1 2013.

People entering the state with mags they bought last month are fine.
People entering the state with mags bought this month are breaking the law.
People entering the state with 10 year old mags they bought today are breaking the law.

Pilot said:

Just make sure all your mags over 15 rounds were bought prior to July 1st. Just sayin.

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How will anyone prove that you bought them after July 1? The only way would be if they have a manufacturer's date code showing production after that date.

It's an unenforceable, pointless, absurd law that effectively declares our legally owned property to be valueless as of yesterday.

calaverasslim said:

as I understand it, you can bring the mags, into the state, but you just can't buy, sell or otherwise transfer any. Nothing, as far as I know, sez you can't drive out of state and buy as many as you want.

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Am I right?

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Nope. You're not allowed to travel to Nebraska (or Wyoming, which I hear is even closer) and purchase new >15-round mags. You're also not allowed to purchase them online with a gift card and have them sent to your friend in another state, only to have the friend give them to you.

Those things are not allowed.

Shmackey said:

Nope. You're not allowed to travel to Nebraska (or Wyoming, which I hear is even closer) and purchase new >15-round mags. You're also not allowed to purchase them online with a gift card and have them sent to your friend in another state, only to have the friend give them to you.

Those things are not allowed.

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Well, you are... just so long as those transactions took place "Before July 1st, 2013"

This new unconstitutional law, which raises my blood pressure every time I talk about it, is fortunately (at least) highly unenforceable. That's the point I was trying to drive at in my post.

But, I do worry about future laws that may lead to an outright ban on the possession of all such magazines. After all, some of the idiots who crafted the new law this year erroneously believed that magazines get used up after a single use like fired ammunition (one of our elected officials was quoted publicly as she said as much).

But, I do worry about future laws that may lead to an outright ban on the possession of all such magazines.

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I wish I could say this is unlikely, but I know it's not.

That being said, the optimist in me (not that there's much of one) sees the mag ban getting scrapped even if the 4473 for in-state transfers stays.

Given the nature of the local media's attempts to demonize sellers and gunowners who use ArmsList, I expect that same media to demonstrate how the new laws continue to be ignored by similar 'undercover' stings. If they do, I would then expect law enforcement to possibly follow suit and crack down on buyers/sellers on ArmsList.

If I lived in Colorado I would take all my questionable arms and magazines and put them into safe storage. It would be foolish to risk a felony conviction. :banghead:

Then I would work my tail off between now and November, 2014 to insure that the legislators behind this ended up unemployed.

Which is exactly what happened to anti-gun Democrats in 1994.

f I lived in Colorado I would take all my questionable arms and magazines and put them into safe storage. It would be foolish to risk a felony conviction.

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It is not a felony, class 2 misdemeanor. Never bothered looking up the punishment for that one.

But you would never be convicted unless you were stupid. Cannot beat the ride and lawyer fees but you will not be convicted unless stupid.

No way I'm going into hiding over this but I can understand why national & regional competitions were cancelled. I wouldn't want to visit CO after this either.

Then I would work my tail off between now and November, 2014 to insure that the legislators behind this ended up unemployed.

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^^^ this is worth my time. Too bad I live in an area that the election is decided in the primary. No way of getting rid of the bastards if there is no primary challenger.

^^^ this is worth my time. Too bad I live in an area that the election is decided in the primary. No way of getting rid of the bastards if there is no primary challenger.

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Then see if they're not others that will join in to see that they're is a primary. The candidate doesn't have to be approved by the party in question.

What may end up happening is that people in Colorado will give money to out-of-state magazine owners. The magazine owners then give their old pre-July-stamped magazines to the Colorado residents and use the money they receive to buy new replacement magazines for themselves.

Magazines don't have dates on them, and manufacturers aren't going to start dating them. No specific firearms were singled out for banning, but any that only use >15 rd. magazines will effectively be banned by default. AR-15's don't require >15 rd. mags, they'll work fine with <15 rd. mags. And theoretically, if I visit another state and buy some more 30 rd. Pmags and bring them home, just how would anybody prove it?

What really galled me was a photo in the paper a few days ago of all these new AR-15's in a rack at a gun store, and every one of them was tagged "not for sale after July 1st"! What? Just WHY can't they sell the rifle with a 15 rd. magazine? Or WITHOUT a magazine? It was obviously a blatant attempt to feed the panic and buying frenzy by fooling people into "OMG! GOTTA BUY ONE NOW!" Jerks.

rondog said:

And theoretically, if I visit another state and buy some more 30 rd. Pmags and bring them home, just how would anybody prove it?

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By the date code embedded in the magazines.

You can always block magazines to whatever round count needed. This is done a lot in CA to convert 30 round mags to 10. The if you ever leave the state or the law is over turned/repealed you can remove the block.

The new CO gun laws are unenforceable and pointless. In the suit to have the new CO gun laws repealed 54 of 64 sheriffs signed a petition saying the laws are unenforceable and illegal under the second amendment.

Black Butte said:

What may end up happening is that people in Colorado will give money to out-of-state magazine owners. The magazine owners then give their old pre-July-stamped magazines to the Colorado residents and use the money they receive to buy new replacement magazines for themselves.

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By the date code embedded in the magazines.

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You are correct in the sense that magazine manufacturers like Magpul use a quality control date stamp on their magazines (many others do not). A lot of people don't realize that this stamp is on the PMAGS since it isn't very obvious unless you go looking for it. But, even with that said, there's no requirement that a magazine has a date stamp, and removing a date stamp is not a criminal offense... it isn't like a serial number on a firearm. Are you following my logic here so far? There's always a way around this stupid law.

Field Tester said:

You can always block magazines to whatever round count needed. This is done a lot in CA to convert 30 round mags to 10. The if you ever leave the state or the law is over turned/repealed you can remove the block.

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The Colorado law requires that the magazine can't be readily converted to take more than 15 rounds. As such, I don't think the idea you mentioned will work for folks in this state.