Colorado Semi-Auto Ban: Covered Firearms, Permits, and Challenges

The Colorado semi-auto ban, enacted as SB 25-003 and signed by Governor Jared Polis on April 10, 2025, takes effect August 1, 2026. On that date it becomes illegal to manufacture, sell, purchase, or transfer most semiautomatic rifles and shotguns with detachable magazines, along with gas-operated semiautomatic handguns with detachable magazines.¹ If you already own one of these firearms, you can keep it. You just cannot sell it or give it to another Colorado resident after the effective date.

What the Law Prohibits

Starting August 1, 2026, knowingly manufacturing, distributing, transferring, selling, or purchasing any firearm the law defines as a “specified semiautomatic firearm” is a crime in Colorado. The ban runs the full length of commerce, from factory production down to private sales between individuals. One narrow exception survives: you can still transfer a covered firearm to someone who lives in another state or to a federally licensed firearms dealer.¹

Penalties are criminal, not civil. A first violation is a class 2 misdemeanor. A second or subsequent violation becomes a class 6 felony, which carries potential prison time and a felony record. That felony record matters beyond state law, because a federal firearms disability under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) attaches to anyone convicted of a felony, barring them from possessing any firearm at all.²

Which Firearms Are Covered

The law defines a “specified semiautomatic firearm” by mechanism rather than by model name. Three categories fall inside the definition:

Semiautomatic rifles with a detachable magazine
Semiautomatic shotguns with a detachable magazine
Gas-operated semiautomatic handguns with a detachable magazine

The detachable magazine is the trigger. A semiautomatic rifle with a fixed internal magazine does not meet the definition. The handgun category is narrower than the rifle and shotgun categories because it reaches only gas-operated designs, leaving blowback-operated pistols outside the ban. The bill text carves out additional firearm types and specific models from the definition.¹

If You Already Own a Covered Firearm

SB 25-003 does not ban possession of firearms acquired before August 1, 2026. There is no mandatory surrender, no registration requirement for existing owners, and no confiscation. What changes is the resale market. After the effective date, you cannot sell your covered firearm to another Colorado resident, transfer it to a family member in state, or give it away locally. Your options are to keep it, transfer it through a federally licensed dealer, or transfer it to an out-of-state buyer.¹

The practical effect is that the in-state secondary market for covered firearms closes on August 1, 2026. The design is to let the pool of covered firearms in Colorado shrink gradually rather than remove them by force.

The Permit Required to Buy Any Gun

SB 25-003 does more than restrict particular firearms. It also requires anyone buying any firearm in Colorado, not just the semiautomatics the ban targets, to first obtain a firearms safety course eligibility card. The process involves completing an in-person safety course of either four or twelve hours (the longer option spread across two days), submitting fingerprints, and passing a criminal background check.¹

Clearing the course and the background check is not the end of it. The county sheriff retains final approval authority and can deny a permit based on a “reasonable belief” that the applicant poses a danger. The sheriff can also revoke a previously issued permit under the same standard. Permits expire after five years and must be renewed.

Magazines and Rapid-Fire Devices

Colorado has restricted large-capacity magazines since July 1, 2013, when the state made it illegal to sell, transfer, or possess a magazine holding more than fifteen rounds.³ SB 25-003 does not change what counts as a large-capacity magazine, but it raises the penalty for violating that rule from a class 2 misdemeanor to a class 1 misdemeanor, which carries heavier potential jail time and fines.¹

The new law also defines “rapid-fire device” and treats such devices as dangerous weapons under Colorado law. The state-level classification matters because the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal bump stock ban in June 2024, holding in Garland v. Cargill that the ATF exceeded its authority by classifying bump stocks as machine guns.⁴ With the federal rule gone, Colorado’s statute fills the gap inside state borders.

How This Differs From the 2024 Attempt

The legislature’s first run at a semiautomatic ban, House Bill 24-1292, took a different shape and failed. That bill named more than a hundred specific firearm models and applied a features test that flagged characteristics like pistol grips, folding stocks, threaded barrels, and barrel shrouds.⁵ It passed the House 35-27 but was postponed indefinitely by the Senate State, Veterans, and Military Affairs Committee on May 7, 2024, on a 4-0 vote.⁶

HB 24-1292 would have imposed civil fines: $250,000 on licensed dealers for a first violation, $500,000 for subsequent violations, and $750 on private sellers.⁵ SB 25-003 abandoned both the model-by-model list and the civil penalty structure, replacing them with a mechanism-based definition and criminal charges.

Pending Constitutional Challenges

Whether SB 25-003 survives judicial review is an open question. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen requires firearms regulations to be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation, and lower courts have split on whether that standard permits bans on commonly owned semiautomatic platforms.

Several cases challenging semiautomatic bans and large-capacity magazine restrictions are pending before the Supreme Court as of early 2026, including petitions in Viramontes, National Association for Gun Rights, Duncan, and Gator’s Custom Guns.⁷ A decision on whether semiautomatic rifles with detachable magazines are protected arms in common use could reshape the ground SB 25-003 stands on. Until that happens, the Colorado law takes effect as scheduled on August 1, 2026.

1
Colorado General Assembly. SB25-003 Semiautomatic Firearms and Rapid-Fire Devices
2
United States Sentencing Commission. Section 922(g) Firearms
3
Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Colorado Revised Statutes 18-12-302
4
Supreme Court of the United States. Garland v Cargill, No 22-976
5
Colorado General Assembly. House Bill 24-1292 Concerning Prohibitions on Certain Firearms Used in Public Mass Shootings
6
Colorado General Assembly. HB24-1292 Prohibit Certain Weapons Used in Mass Shootings
7
Duke Center for Firearms Law. SCOTUS Gun Watch