Wednesday, 28 March 2007
House legislators approved a Senate Democrat measure today barring Colorado residents on using out-of-state concealed carry permits for their self-defense needs.
The bill is now en route to Gov. Bill Ritter for consideration.
Senate Bill 34, by freshman Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, and House Majority Leader Alice Madden, D-Boulder, restricts Colorado’s recognition of valid out-of-state concealed-carry firearms permits. It passed in the House by a mostly party-line vote of 36-29.
Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, expressed his displeasure of the bill’s outcome in the House.
“The Legislature has taken its first shot at the Second Amendment,” said Brophy after learning of the House vote on the proposal. “I’m anxious to see if the governor will stand up for the Second Amendment or not.”
During its Senate debate, SB 34 became an immediate, top-priority target of opposition from gun-rights groups led by the National Rifle Association.
Critics of the bill point out there is no point in creating another bureaucratic hurdle to concealed-carry permit holders arriving in Colorado from other states because, like permit holders in Colorado, they are overwhelmingly law-abiding citizens.
Democrat Senators Lois Tochtrop, of Thornton, and Bob Hagedorn, of Aurora, and Jim Isgar, of Hesperus, voted with a majority of GOP senators against SB 34 last month.
“What concerned me was that out-of-state valid permit holders who come to Colorado are breaking the law (under the bill),” said Isgar.
Republicans argued in the Senate that SB 34 should be re-written to expand current law so that Colorado would recognize every valid concealed-carry firearms permit issued to legal citizens of the United States.
“This bill is an unnecessary restriction on concealed-carry permit holders,” Brophy said. “I’m disappointed that it’s moving on.”
