Colorado Senate Democrats passed their gun control package on Monday night. The AP reported:
A gun control package pushed by Colorado Democrats cleared the state Senate on Monday, as sponsors described it as a needed response to Colorado’s blood-soaked history of mass shootings.
One Democrat after another rose Monday to talk about restricting gun rights after last July’s shooting at a suburban Denver movie theater. The vote came on the eve of an expected plea by the alleged gunman, James Holmes, who is accused of killing 12 people and injuring dozens more.
The measures approved by the Senate included a limit on the kinds of high-capacity ammunition magazines Holmes is accused of using in the theater shooting. Other measures included expanded background checks on private gun sales and a new ban on gun ownership for people facing domestic violence charges.
Republicans argued in vain that the gun controls would not have prevented the theater shooting, nor the school massacre last December in Newtown, Conn. Some cited the 1999 Columbine High School shootings outside Denver.
Democrats stood firm.
Republicans say one of the bills passed last night may ban thousands of legal guns. The Gazette reported:
The bill now heads back to the House, where it already has passed, because of an amendment that changes the limit on shotgun shells from eight to a limit on the length of the tube holding the cartridges.
Senate President Bill Cadman, R-Colorado Springs, called it an “oops” amendment — a correction of a major oversight that would have made most shotguns illegal because an eight-cartridge tube can hold more than eight smaller shells.
“This bill criminalizes legal products in Colorado,” Cadman said. “There won’t be any way to distinguish whether they are pre-ban or post-ban … casting a shadow of illegality on hundreds of thousands of people who have these magazines already.”