Colorado House advances permit-to-purchase bill for certain semiautomatic firearms after daylong debate

The Colorado House of Representatives advanced Senate Bill 3 on second reading and adopted the Committee of the Whole report after a daylong debate and a string of floor amendments on March 21, 2025. The bill, as amended, would prohibit the manufacture, distribution and sale of certain semiautomatic firearms unless a buyer first holds a state-issued firearms safety-course eligibility card and completes required safety training and verification steps. The House adopted the Committee of the Whole report on a recorded vote and the bill was laid over for further action.

Provisions and scope

The measure targets a class of semiautomatic rifles, shotguns and certain gas-operated semiautomatic handguns with detachable magazines, and creates a permit-to-purchase process for those firearms. Under the bill, prospective buyers must obtain a firearms safety-course eligibility card from the county sheriff, complete prescribed in-person safety training (a minimum basic course and an optional extended course in the bill text), and be entered in a state firearms training-and-record system before certain firearms may be legally transferred. The bill includes exemptions for law-enforcement agencies, the military, gunsmiths returning repaired firearms to lawful owners, certain museum and forensic uses, and other narrowly defined circumstances.

The bill instructs the Parks and Wildlife Division to develop and operate the firearms training and safety course record system and authorizes a cash fund financed largely by course-record fees collected from instructors. It also defines…