Denver gun laws

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woodman

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Hello all! New guy here. These might be stupid questions, but here goes: I live in Denver (People's Republic of...) and I would like to know a few things about Denver gun ordinances. First, does anyone have the actual list of firearms banned in Denver? I'm sure the AR15 is on the list, which is what I'd really like to own, but what about the M1A or Mini-14? I've read that there is in fact such a list, but I haven't found it anywhere.
Next is the probably stupid question: If I were to buy an AR15 elsewhere in Colorado, in a county/municipality where is is not banned, and store it, say, at a gun club outside of Denver, for target shooting or varmints, and never actually brought the AR15 into Denver, would I be in violation of the Denver ordinance? I realize I would still own the gun, therefore possession, but I'm not sure how that works out if it's a local ordinance and the gun in question has never been in the City & County of Denver, and state law says it's legal in Colorado. I plan on moving out of Denver within the next couple of years partly because of Denver's goofy laws, but I don't really want to wait that long to buy it if it's not necessary. Any info greatly appreciated, thanks!
 
Colorado has a state pre-emption law. Any and all local restrictions hold no legal weight, despite Denver's "but we're home-rule!" bs.
 
Colorado has a state pre-emption law. Any and all local restrictions hold no legal weight, despite Denver's "but we're home-rule!" bs.
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That's state law; unfortunately, Denver, which wants to be the San Francisco of the Rocky Mountains, took the matter to court, and didn't have much trouble finding a tame judge to agree with its misinterpretation of home rule law. I wish I had faith in the state's willingness to fight long and hard in court to settle the matter once and for all in favor of the right to keep and bear arms.
 
The banned guns are unbanned by the state pre-emption law.

The only thing Denver has challenged is open carry, which is still under appeal.
 
and never actually brought the AR15 into Denver, would I be in violation of the Denver ordinance? I realize I would still own the gun, therefore possession, but I'm not sure how that works out if it's a local ordinance and the gun in question has never been in the City & County of Denver
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Denver cannot tell you what you can and cannot own or possess outside thier area. So how can you get into trouble for having an AR-15 outside of Denver?

-Bill
 
Found some info!

http://library2.municode.com/mcc/home.htm?infobase=10257&doc_method=cleardoc

It's under Chapter 38, Article IV, Division 2, Sec. 38-130

Found the list and the Denver law as it stands. Thanks Flatfender! Got the section number from your link and traced it. Took some digging but it was there - Sec. 38-130. It'll make ya puke! Looks like the AR15 is a no-no, but the Springfield M1A scout might be okay as long as I don't have more than a 20-round mag. Same for the Mini-14 probably. Denver is breaking state law (in my humble but accurate non-lawyer opinion), but it's sort of a moot point until it's settled in court - Denver is enforcing its anti-gun laws at present. On the subject of storing an AR15 outside the City & County - I don't see anything in the wording that prohibits it. The summarythat Flatfender's link went to says "ownership" rather than simply possession within city limits, while the law itself does not say "ownership" is prohibited. Interesting that they chose that wording for the summary.
 
Denver is NOT enforcing any city firearms laws at this time EXCEPT the ban on open carry. The open carry law is the ONLY law being challenged in court. They may sue to enforce the ban at a later date, but I've heard nothing about it...
 
enforcement

Thanks Morgan. I was under the impression from some articles I read that Denver was still enforcing its bans (although they may have been older articles). If it's accurate that they're not enforcing it sounds like they know they're on shaky ground with state law. I did however ask a local gun dealer about an AR15, and he indicated he could not sell it to me because of my Denver residence. That was about 3 months ago, so maybe things have changed. Anyway, thanks for the info - I'll have another look at that AR.
 
Agreed. Despite the fact that the bans are on the books, Denver has actually been pretty good at informing their police officers that they shouldn't enforce them. Open carry is still up in the air.
 
OK, this is a LONG involved mess going back a very long time.

The extreme short form:

* The original CO constitution of 1876 included a strong RKBA provision.

* Some time after that, a "home rule" system for some cities was created - I'm not sure the exact year but think "early 20th century". The "home rule" clause added to the CO Const. says that "home rule" cannot be used to strip anybody of individual civil rights pre-existing before "home rule" - which would definately include the state RKBA.

* Denver used "home rule" to try and stomp all over the RKBA of anybody passing through. At this stage, the Rick Stanley affair went down. Stanley was busted, but the CO Supreme court said in a footnote that Denver's position was untenable and would get shot down the minute it came before the Supremes. But Stanley never got that far because...sigh, because he used political and legal tactics at a level of bone-headedness seldom seen since...hmmmm...possibly never. I guess there's been worse but I can't recall any offhand. Long story, and this is the short form so I'll skip it for now. You can ask Stanley but you'll get back about 2,000 pages of poorly formatted text. That's if he's in a mood to keep it *short*...God help you if he gets verbose.

* The Stanley fiasco aside, the legislature realized that this was all going to blow up one way or another so they passed a strict preemption law AND a shall-issue CCW law, specifically taking away Denver's right to disarm anybody via city/county/local rules more strict than state.

Which should have been the end of it (and Stanley let go) except...

* Denver took the position that the latest preemption and CCW laws could be trumped by their "home rule" status...making them officially even stupider than Rick Stanley which is saying a lot!

So the latest is, the state attorney general and Denver's lawyers are locked in bitter combat over this. The state AG "gets it" in spades and doesn't need any help at this point. I recommend that any CO resident get the latest intel on those legal wranglings from any of the CO gunny groups or better yet join a CO-specific mailing list and basically grab some popcorn and watch the show.
 
I did however ask a local gun dealer about an AR15, and he indicated he could not sell it to me because of my Denver residence.
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If the dealer isn't in city/county of Denver then how come he can't sell you the rifle? Does CO have a law stating you must keep your guns in the place you live?

-Bill
 
Forgot which dealer told me that. I'm sure it was one that carries Rock River Arms, because that's what I've been looking at mostly. Anybody know when the court cases are coming up? I'd like to follow the action.
 
IIRC even in denver you can still have an AR-15- home rule or no. That gun dealer sounds full of BS.
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Even if if Denver could say you couldn't have an EBR, they can only tell you to keep it out of Denver. There are plenty of people in this country who keep guns where they don't live.

-Bill
 
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