The Colorado House approved two gun control bills on Friday, adding new burdens on firearms dealers and expanding the state's red flag law in a session that doubled as a reminder of how aggressively Democratic legislators are willing to regulate the Second Amendment when they hold the gavels.
The first bill, HB26-1126, passed 34 to 28 and now heads to the Senate. The second, SB 26-004, cleared the chamber 39 to 24 and lands next on Gov. Jared Polis's desk. The Democrat is expected to sign it into law.
Together, the measures represent a familiar two-front strategy: squeeze the supply side by piling compliance costs onto licensed dealers, and widen the legal apparatus for confiscating firearms from individuals who haven't been convicted of a crime.
According to Just the News, HB26-1126 imposes a battery of requirements on licensed firearms dealers. Background checks would apply not only to the dealer but also to employees and anyone with a say over store policy. Dealers would need a permit to transfer firearms in or out of the state. Record-keeping mandates would cover all firearms in a dealership's inventory. The bill also allows for increased state penalties against dealers and establishes higher standards for gun security at stores.
Rep. Emily Sirota, the bill's Democratic champion from the 9th District, framed the legislation as a bookkeeping exercise:
"That is why we are here. We are just fixing some of these gaps in record keeping."
Just fixing some gaps. The language is revealing. Every major regulatory expansion gets sold as a minor tune-up. Sirota argued that because most guns start as legal purchases from licensed dealers, tighter dealer oversight is the logical intervention point. But the leap from "legal gun sold legally" to "therefore regulate the seller more" skips over the part where the criminal, not the dealer, breaks the law.
Rep. Anthony Hartsook, a Republican from the 44th District, cut to the economic reality on the House floor:
"The secondary and tertiary impacts of that are your small businesses. Some of them will look at it and go, 'This is no longer cost-effective. I can't keep doing this because I'm losing money.'"
Hartsook pressed the broader principle that every regulatory mandate carries a price tag, and that price falls hardest on small operators who lack the overhead to absorb compliance costs.
"Small businesses are the engine of Colorado. Small businesses are the engine of America."
He's right. And the pattern is worth noting: the same political coalition that claims to champion small business and local entrepreneurship treats firearms retailers as an exception to every principle it professes. The goal is not record-keeping. The goal is to make the business of selling legal firearms so expensive and so legally perilous that fewer people bother doing it.
SB 26-004 expands who can petition for Extreme Risk Protection Orders, Colorado's mechanism for temporarily removing firearms from individuals deemed a threat. Under the new bill, institutional petitioners such as health care facilities and schools would be able to initiate the process.
That is a significant expansion. Red flag laws already operate in a constitutional gray zone, allowing courts to strip a citizen's Second Amendment rights based on a petition rather than a criminal conviction. Broadening the pool of petitioners to include institutions, rather than just individuals with direct personal knowledge, moves the mechanism further from due process and closer to bureaucratic prerogative.
Rep. Rebecca Keltie, a Republican from the 16th District, did not mince words:
"This bill in itself will cause harm, and in my opinion, voting for it will as well."
The 39-24 vote suggests Democrats felt no need to moderate. With Polis expected to sign, the expansion will become law without meaningful resistance at the executive level.
Neither bill, taken alone, constitutes a dramatic overhaul. That's the point. Colorado Democrats have learned that gun control advances most effectively in layers:
The strategy never requires a single vote that looks radical on its own. It only requires time and a compliant governor.
Friday's session wasn't entirely consumed by firearms. The House unanimously passed HB 26-1299 with 63 votes and no discussion, with two members excused. That education bill eliminates the requirement for a written policy on student use of paper or computers for standardized state tests and redirects missing child alerts to the state Department of Education instead of individual school districts.
The chamber also approved HB26-1102 on a 40-23 vote, sending it to the Senate. The bill would allow the transfer of vehicle licenses between cars, giving drivers the option to petition to keep a car's license plate after the vehicle changes ownership.
Both measures passed with minimal drama, a contrast that highlights where Colorado's political energy actually flows. Sixty-three legislators can agree unanimously on test-taking paperwork. They split along party lines the moment a firearm enters the conversation.
HB26-1126 still needs the Senate. SB 26-004 needs only a signature that everyone expects to be coming. For Colorado's gun owners and the small dealers who serve them, Friday was another step in a direction that has been clear for years.
The bills will be defended as reasonable. The costs will be absorbed by people who can't afford lobbyists. And the next session will bring the next layer, sold with the same three words: just fixing gaps.
