“…employees at one store after another offered to sell a large-capacity magazine disassembled in parts.”
An unintended loophole in a Colorado gun control bill illustrates what happens when lawmakers legislate technology they don’t understand: Firearms owners find a way to work around the law without breaking it.
In 2013, the Colorado legislature passed House Bill 13-1224, which prohibits the “sale, transfer, or possession of an ammunition feeding device that is capable of accepting, or that can be readily converted to accept, more than [15] rounds of ammunition or more than [8] shotgun shells (large-capacity magazine).” This was a year after James Holmes used a semiautomatic rifle equipped with a 100-round drum magazine (among other weapons) to kill 12 people in a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. The bill grandfathered in old large-capacity magazines that gun owners already had in their possession but forbade new sales or transfers. Then-Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) signed the bill into law on July 1. The law was intended to erase the market for new large-capacity magazines.
However, some gun dealers noticed that the bill made no mention of magazine components and capitalized on the omission. Dealers throughout the state began selling “parts kits” that contain everything a gun owner needs to assemble their own large-capacity magazine at home. In fact, some gun stores throughout the state now sell magazines only in parts kit form.
by Noah Shepardson
