DENVER (KDVR) — A firearm group’s fight against gun restrictions in Colorado continues with a new challenge to the state’s large-capacity magazine ban.
Colorado law prohibits magazines that carry more than 15 rounds. In a new lawsuit filed in federal court on Thursday, the legal arm of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners claims magazines that large are “standard” and the ban infringes on constitutional rights.
The lawsuit continues the group’s recent flurry of legal activity since the U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. In that case, the high court ruled in June that Americans have a right to carry guns in public for self-defense.
“The Bruen decision gave us a 4-ton wrecking ball to dismantle Colorado’s gun control laws — and we’re going to wipe out every unconstitutional law that stands in the way of law-abiding citizen’s Second Amendment rights,” Dudley Brown, the group’s president, stated in a news release on Thursday.
Law ruled constitutional in 2020 — before Bruen decision
Colorado’s high-capacity magazine ban passed in 2013 under a Democrat-led House and Senate. Rocky Mountain Gun Owners has already challenged the law. In 2020, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional.
The group’s latest lawsuit will put the law to the test once again on the heels of the latest Supreme Court ruling. It claims violations of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and the 14th Amendment, which is meant to safeguard life, liberty and property from arbitrary actions by the state government.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday by the National Foundation for Gun Rights, Inc., which is the legal arm of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners. Two Coloradans, Benjamin Gates and Travis Swartz, were also named as plaintiffs. It names Gov. Jared Polis as the sole defendant.
Rocky Mountain Gun Owners had recent success in Superior, where a judge put a temporary block on parts of a new gun control ordinance, including the ban on the sale and possession of assault weapons in the town.
