The National Rifle Association joined a federal challenge to Colorado's new permit and training system for purchases of certain semiautomatic firearms, according to an August 12 announcement from NRA-ILA. Lawyers for the plaintiffs moved one day earlier for a preliminary injunction against the permit-to-purchase provisions while the case proceeds. The law took effect August 1, so the request concerns rules already operating, not a proposal awaiting enactment.

The case is Del Toro v. Polis. The Colorado State Shooting Association, an NRA state affiliate, and five members brought it: Israel Del Toro, Luke Sorensen, Nathanael Skiver, Jason Reeves, and Garrett Flicker. NRA-ILA counsel has now joined lawyers from Mountain States Legal Foundation and First & Fourteenth PLLC in representing them. The preliminary-injunction motion argues that Colorado created an ahistorical permitting system that violates the Second Amendment and can prevent otherwise lawful buyers from acquiring common firearms. That is the plaintiffs' position, not yet a final holding by the court.

What the law covers

Colorado's enacted Senate Bill 25-003 generally prohibits knowingly manufacturing, distributing, transferring, selling, or purchasing a “specified semiautomatic firearm” unless an exception applies. The statutory category includes a semiautomatic rifle or shotgun with a detachable magazine and a gas-operated semiautomatic handgun with a detachable magazine. It excludes qualifying rimfire guns, manually operated actions, antiques, curios or relics, permanently inoperable firearms, certain fixed-magazine firearms, recoil-operated single- or double-action semiautomatic handguns, and listed models. The lawsuit announcement focuses on the purchase pathway rather than every provision of the act.