DENVER — Just a few hours after it went into effect on Sunday, Colorado’s new law imposing a minimum three-day waiting period for gun purchases was already facing a legal challenge.
Rocky Mountain Gun Owners announced they had refiled a federal lawsuit, seeking to have the law declared unconstitutional.
The law requires sellers to wait at least three days before transferring a gun to a buyer.
Violators must pay fines of $500 for the first offense, and up to $5,000 for subsequent offenses.
The new law not only applies to people buying guns at gun shops, but also those who buy guns at gun shows.
It was something many people at the Tanner Gun Show in Denver were talking about over the weekend.
The Firearms Coalition of Colorado, which had a booth at the show, handed out informational flyers to people to remind them of the new law taking effect on the final day of the gun show.
The law will do more harm than good, Devin Perkins, the marketing director for DCF Guns, told Denver7.
"I think it's ineffective. Like a lot of the gun control that gets passed in this state it's not going to stop any criminals from following laws because they're criminals. They don't follow laws already,” Perkins said. “It's going to trip up some other smaller gun companies. It's going to make everything more difficult.”
Denver7 found plenty of others at the gun show who agreed with him.
"This new law is just a posture by the politicians,” Alfonso Perez-Palma with Universal Exports said. "It's going to affect all in the industry. It's just making our lives extremely complicated."
"It's definitely infringing on our Second Amendment right and that definitely needs to stop,” Dustin Sabbagh, owner of 2SonzGunz, said.
State senator Tom Sullivan, who lost his son in the Aurora theater shooting in 2012, was a prime sponsor of the legislation.
"This isn't infringing on anybody, but what we're asking them to do, is become a partner with us to try to keep people alive,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan thinks the law will save lives, especially when it comes to preventing suicides.
"What you're trying to do is remove the most lethal means of killing oneself to take that out of their hands,” Sullivan said. “And if we can do that, we can save some lives."
The three-day waiting period was among a package of gun control laws Colorado’s Democratic-controlled legislature approved this year.
Sullivan said he’s confident the law will withstand the legal challenge by Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.
"We're confident that what we did is legitimate and constitutional,” Sullivan said.
Rocky Mountain Gun Owners withdrew their first lawsuit challenging the law after a federal judge determined they did not have standing to bring the suit, since the law had not taken effect.
"Enough is enough! We will not bow down to unconstitutional infringements on our Second Amendment freedoms. We've reloaded our legal arsenal and are ready to take on this absurd waiting period that does nothing but trample on the rights of peaceable gun owners. We will not let tyranny prevail,” Rocky Mountain Gun Owners' Executive Director Taylor Rhodes said.
The new law does not apply to antique gun sellers nor to military members who are being deployed within the next month.
The law also does not apply in cases where the buyer and seller are related or in cases where they enjoy a “significant personal bond that is or is like a family relationship.”
