The Colorado Supreme Court will decide whether a law banning gun magazines that hold more than 15 rounds violates a person’s state constitutional right to bear arms, though courts in other states have not reversed similar laws.
The state’s highest court announced Monday that it would hear the case, which stems from a 2016 lawsuit by Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and other gun rights advocates challenging the law. Both the Colorado Court of Appeals and a district court found the law constitutional.
It would be surprising if the state supreme court were to deviate from those decisions, said Hannah Shearer, litigation director for the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Similar cases challenging magazine limits in other states and in federal court have not been successful.
“It would definitely be an outlier opinion” if the court decided to strike down the law, she said.
Neither the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners nor the National Association for Gun Rights — which is also a plaintiff in the case — returned requests for comment Monday.
State lawmakers passed the large-capacity magazine ban in 2013 as part of a broad attempt to reform gun laws following the Aurora theater shooting the year before. The shooter at the theater used a large-capacity magazine to fire more than 60 bullets in less than a minute, killing twelve people and wounding 58.
The law banned the sale, possession or transfer of a magazine that holds more than 15 rounds, though it allowed people who already owned such magazines before July 1, 2013, to keep them.
The Colorado Court of Appeals found in October that the law was constitutional because it is a “reasonable exercise” of the state’s right to enact laws that protect residents’ health and safety. The court found the law was not too broad and that the state had a legitimate interest in reducing deaths from mass shootings, according to the decision.
Those challenging the law argued the ban was unconstitutional because it was not proven to be effective in reducing overall gun violence, but the appeals court judges disagreed.
The writer of the opinion, Judge David Richman, noted that the shooters at both Columbine High School and the Aurora theater used large-capacity magazines.
“Legislation need not solve all gun problems to be constitutional,” Richman wrote for the court.
A federal appeals court previously found it did not have jurisdiction to hear an argument about whether Colorado’s high-capacity magazine ban violated the Second Amendment.
The Colorado Supreme Court will also consider whether it should change the standard used to determine whether a law restricting access to guns and ammunition is unconstitutional. A previous ruling established that a state law must be considered “reasonable.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has previously declined to hear a case that challenges a state law banning the sale of large-capacity magazines, said Shearer from the Giffords Law Center. The Supreme Court is unlikely to take up such a case because there is such broad consensus in federal courts, Shearer said. All but one federal court have upheld similar bans in other states, even when applying stricter federal case law, she said.
“No matter what standard they’re applying here this law seems to fit in with the Colorado right to bear arms,” Shearer said.
A legislative effort to repeal the ban last year died in committee along with other bills aimed at relaxing Colorado gun laws.
