On May 15, the Boulder, Colorado, city government unanimously passed an “assault weapons” and “high capacity” magazine ban. The ban is likely illegal and was immediately challenged in a lawsuit.

On Tuesday, the Boulder city council doubled down on the ban, adding still more restrictions, and an exemption for competitive shooters who travel through the city.

From the dailycamera.com:

Five amendments were proposed. On an 8-1 vote, council passed three: Removing an exemption for 30-round handgun magazines that are legal under Colorado law; allowing competitive shooters to travel through Boulder with assault weapons; and clarifying the language so that any individual not allowed to possess firearms under state and federal law could not receive a certificate of ownership.

Council member Mirabai Nagle was the lone dissenting vote. She opposed banning high-capacity handgun magazines that are legal under state law, grandfathered in via a 2013 measure.

“The gun community is not going to turn in their 30-round magazines,” she said, “so we just turned a bunch more people into criminals.”

She also voiced discomfort with disallowing gun stores from issuing certificates of ownership, which she argued would boost compliance. The rest of the council was swayed by arguments from the city attorney and police chief that background checks at private dealers would not be sufficient.

The Court challenge lists several Second Amendment-based arguments. But courts may not even get that far because it appears the Boulder city government is directly violating Colorado’s preemption law.

From findlaw.com:

Colorado Revised Statutes Title 29 Government Local § 29-117-103

A local government may not enact an ordinance, regulation, or other law that prohibits the sale, purchase, or possession of a firearm that a person may lawfully sell, purchase, or possess under state or federal law.  Any such ordinance, regulation, or other law enacted by a local government prior to March 18, 2003, is void and unenforceable.

The Colorado State Supreme Court tied on finding that Denver was exempt from § 29-117-103, in 2006, allowing a lower court ruling to stand.

An important part of any law is the provision for penalties. I have not found any penalty attached to violation of § 29-117-103. It’s possible the Boulder ban will be struck down as moot under the Colorado statute, without penalty for the city or council members. It’s also possible that the Colorado courts will find a way to exempt Boulder from the statute as they did Denver.

Boulder is one of the most “progressive” cities in the country. It is a college town, like Madison, Wisconsin, and Berkeley, California. The votes of college students, under the tutelage of progressive professors, in cities where the student population is a significant percentage of the population, ensure leftist government.

I spent considerable time in Boulder on official business while I was employed by the Department of Defense. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is located there.

The university and the student population dominate the city and it’s a beautiful setting. Large amounts of government funding for the university and government institutions there, such as NCAR, ensure that the city is well-populated with government-funded technocrats.

We won’t know if the Colorado courts will uphold the law for several months.

©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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37 COMMENTS

  2. Boulder sounds like an elitist community. The Federal Government needs to step in and construct 10,000 units of public housing to diversify the population of the city and make it more “American”.

  3. Another good reason not to move to the state of CO. We thought of moving to S/W CO, which is a fairly conservative area. But like The coastal areas of Kalifornia, Oregon and Washington, the Denver area, including Boulder basically veto’s any conservative votes for the rest of the state.

    • I currently love in SW CO after retreating from Denver. Unfortunately, the progs are attempting to ruin this area as well. Luckily there’s still a solid stronghold in the rural areas but losing ground every year it seems.

        • Sam, that’s depressing. Even though we had looked into the Cortez area, and decided against it due to the state politics, it was still in the back of our minds. After reading your comment, not so much.

          • From what I read, the virus is on the verge of strangling Texas. Similar demos: urban areas outweigh the rural. My squadron buddy who still lives in the Denver area said the old, laid-back, western flavor of Colorado has been banished from the major cities. Apparently “affordable housing” is being constructed in Denver with rents starting at
            $1400/mo.

            • Yup, but stand by. I have a friend who worked a job as a contractor for the new Apple building near San Jose. He was able to get a space for his 5th wheel trailer, just a space, nothing more, for the measly sum of 4000.00 a month. Denver is close to becoming like the cities in Kalifornia. Colorado, once a great state is no more,

              • If the Rockies couldn’t stop the red tide, can the Appalachians even provide a speed bump? Guess that is a silly question, the virus already extends to most of the Appalachians. Breaching the Rockies means the virus is loose in the ancient sea bed. What’s to stop it?

                Not to worry. Evil never rests. This is all required. I read the back of the book; evil looses completely.

  4. Were I a competitive shooter, I would take great care to not travel through Boulder if at all possible.

    Completely apart from having zero faith that the “exemption” would be recognized and applied properly, I have zero desire to spend any of my money there.

  5. I know there is strong opposition to this by residents, so is it out of the question that they file a restraining order like Deerfield did to block it until the courts weigh in?

    Any reason why this says it will take months for courts to figure out? Can’t a lawyer that I assume already is employed by the city and likely required to review these changes able to flip to the pre-emption law and make a decision?

    • The Boulder City Attorney was probably elected by the same dipshits who elected the other city officers. Slim chance it will do anything to actually help out the folks who are against this new so called law.

      • Fair enough to assume the city attorney would be on board. I guess I just expect to much that their is not some sort of fast track to compare the changes against the state Constitution or other laws.

        I normally only see it fit that judges are involved when it’s necessary to sort out ambiguity like when a law is challenged, proctor through the legal process for innocent or guilty, or intervein with legislation that has other challenges ( such as this article states, it describes no punishment so may be moot ).

        That seems like it got too far past the basic quality gates to become a law, and that something like fact checking (does it conflict with laws on the books) is more like a clerical role.

        If I ran a city, I would want to ensure that my job and budget are not at risk for any legislation entering the books. Such as, wasting budget on legal fees to fight this law, which looks bad to my constituents and hinders my re-election or growth in politics. Or possibly the fact that it was publicly stated that they didn’t care if this law was legal, or that it was just to feel good by acknowledgement that it would not have been effective against the stuff it was written to deter.

        • WareWolf, please run for office. You seem to have something lacking in a lot of politicains, namely, common sense.

  6. On two different occasions, I was forced up against Boulder. The first time was when Boulder felt disrespected because they didn’t get any federal funds to support homeless shelters (hint: Boulder at the time did not have any homeless people). The council decision was to advertise in Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, D.C. (and a few other liberal utopias) free bus fare for homeless people to travel to Boulder to establish a homeless population. After some threshold was met, Boulder applied for, and received perpetual federal funding for homeless outreach.

    The second adventure, 15 yrs later, was a car trip from Colorado Springs to Estes Park. The purpose was to visit the Stanley Hotel, where Stephen King wrote the book, “The Shining”. The Stanley featured prominently in the book, but not in the movie. In the movie, the “Stanley Hotel” was actually located in Finland, or some other frozen wasteland. At any rate, we traveled along a traditional hiway from Denver to Estes Park, a road that took us through Boulder (now a liberal wasteland). Some in the car remarked on the features of the town. What I noticed was that there was not a “Welcome To Boulder” sign approaching the city from south or north.

    • Was there a couple weeks ago, for my kid’s PhD graduation. Have been calling it the PRB (People’s Republic of Boulder) for many decades now. Was in their Congressional district until fairly recently, until I formally moved to MT. The district has 3 research universities, and a bunch of ski areas (talk about gerrymandering), so no surprise that the Representative is the only married gay guy in Congress (who is now running for governor, with a bunch of money behind him already).

      I am assuming that you were heading through to Estes via Lyons. My guess why the inside of the Stanley Hotel was not used in that movie is that it showed its age (>100 years old now) much more than the exterior. Was there for a wedding reception for a guy who I grew up with. His grandfather had been the chef there in maybe the 1930s or so.

      Boulder really is pretty scenic, which is why it is filled with so many athletic yuppies. They have the Flatirons fairly close, and you can see Longs, Meeker, etc in Rocky Mtn Nat Park in the distance in much of the city. And CU is mostly built of flagstone with red tile roofs. Part of the problem though is that the housing stock is pretty old, thanks to 40 or so years of rent control. Rents are absurd – kid lived for 5 years with 4 other grad students in a house that would normally house just a small family. I think that cumulatively, they were paying maybe $4k a month. Buying is even more problematic. And if you ever visit, keep in mind that if you hit a bicyclist (who are ubiquitous), the jury will likely contain a majority of bicyclists. And don’t shoot the mountain lions for similar reasons.

      • While the Stanley was not used for the original “Shining” movie, it was used in the TV movie version.

        We went to EP along US 36, departed via US 34 to I-70.

      • “keep in mind that if you hit a bicyclist (who are ubiquitous), the jury will likely contain a majority of bicyclists. And don’t shoot the mountain lions for similar reasons.”

        Why not? Would the jury contain a majority of mountain lions in that case? LOL

  8. So they recognize that competitive shooting is a valid use of so-called assault weapons, which in and of itself is a big step, as most progressives draw the line at hunting for any reason to even have guns. They are thus ok with the scary guns passing through in the hands of outsiders, I mean, only used for competitions, right? But you aren’t allowed to be a competitive shooter if you live there? That seems hard to justify. This would be like allowing valid concealed licensed carry (or even constitutional carry) for anyone except local citizens. Do you need an invitation to a national match to qualify for the exemption? Actively going to a match, or just a competitive shooter going to practice at the range? Do you have to be ranked, or just in the mood to take up competitive shooting? Might be a lot of new shooters just outside Boulder taking up 3 gun!

  9. Common everyone. Did you expect a country based on freedom to last this long without a collapse? Heck, we have been on borrowed time for decades. Look around! It is happening. But, this does not mean it is the end of freedom. It is what you do today and the upcoming months that will decide for your kids and their kids what kind of life they will have. Do we want to be the generation that let freedom die at the hands of these leftist dweebs? It is time to do something. Look at how the left fights. Use their same tactics against them. Go to their speeches in mass, and drown them out. Protest at their homes and places of business. Shame the businesses that hire them or do business with them. Study them and fling it back 10 fold. I know that we want to be civilized and courteous, but the reality is that no matter how civilized and courteous you are, you will still get falsely accused of every evil they have done. Keep it legal, though, within the scope of our constitutional rights of free speech, of course. The point is that you need to do something. This is your time.

    • “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, so my child may know peace” TP.
      “It is no longer enough to be willing to fight and die to protect our rights, one must be willing to kill for them, too”. IST

  10. That’s fucked up. What’s happened? The last time I was in Colorado seemed like everybody had a firearm. Skoal spit on the sidewalk, drinking beer, jumping off mountains with a big kite, having a good old time. Now you can even fart without breaking an air pollution law.

    • What happened? Infiltration of filthy anti-American Liberal Terrorists™️ who are bonafide domestic enemies.

  11. That’s the problem with states like Texas, Colorado, Oregon, and Montana, to name a few. After the progressives ruin their own state (I’m looking at you, California), they then move on to other states and ruin them, remaking them into the state they just left. I lived in Wyoming, and if it weren’t for the harsh winters, I am sure they would do the same.

    • Yup, Montana is a loss. A post-conservative post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with hungry animals wandering the frozen tundra in search of lost preppers and failed big outs.*

      So move along. There’s nothing to see here.

      *Brought to you by the Montana Department of Tourism Prevention.

      .

      • Be interesting if MT ever goes gunless. In this county, we have all the large N American mammalian predators, though wolves and brown bears are only recently returned. Occasional black bear on the porch. Mtn Lions up high with the brown bear. Also, a large number of the herbivores, including bison, elk, and bighorn sheep. Saw a female moose maybe 5 miles away last week. Wife claims Mtn Goats, but I haven’t seen them. Of course, deer, that stroll out in the 70 mph traffic, are the most likely to need the attention of a quick gun death.

        Great sign I just saw a couple minutes ago:
        “Save 100 Elk – Kill a Wolf”

        • Seems like the Bitterroot is still fairly conservative except for Missula, which is a liberal cesspool.

    • Yea, I just read an article about the water rationing bill just passed in Kalifornia. It’s got a lot of folks pissed off and they plan on moving out of the state. Watch out Nevada and Montana. Oregon and WA don’t need to worry, the libs have already taken over those states.

  12. So, to end this story…The Fine US citizens of Boulder, CO. Dissolved The Boulder City Council, charging THEIR council members with treason, failure to uphold the oath of office protect US constitutional/ Bill of Rights, Infringing upon the Constitutional Rights of the People, and tyranny ! THEY were immediately stripped of office, Flogged in the Public Square, Tarred and Feathered, Exiled, and Run out of the Township…Along with the Town Attorney, and The Police Chief…And any other @$$-Hat that assisted in this lunacy…See sounds like an American dream come true…Too bad it isn’t happening yet across our nation!

  13. One day soon, one of these cities will attempt to confiscate a banned firearms or magazines from the wrong person. A very ugly gunfight will ensue. This in turn will cause more of the same across the nation. 1st one guy facing an entry team then citizens will ban together thus small unit wars ensue…..

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