Colorado permit-to-purchase licensing: RMGO amicus brief in Viramontes

Key points: Colorado permit-to-purchase licensing RMGO

• RMGO reframes the question for the Court: not only whether Cook County may ban commonly owned semi-automatic rifles, but what conditions government may attach to the commercial sale of anything the Second Amendment covers.
• Colorado is the template. Senate Bill 3 began as an outright assault weapon ban; when the political will was not there, it returned as permit-to-purchase for semi-automatic rifles that accept a detachable magazine.
• Under that regime a buyer pays for training, proves eligibility, and clears a background check before earning the privilege of going to a dealer and clearing a second background check.
• The spine of the brief is the indirect-means principle: states and localities may not accomplish indirectly what the Constitution forbids them from doing directly.
• It catalogues the national pattern — acquisition licenses, serial delays, cumulative fees, mandatory training, waiting periods imposed after eligibility is established, expansive sensitive-place designations, feature-based prohibitions — and argues review must examine what a law does, not the label a legislature gives it.
• Kirk points to the statute's own title as evidence of substitution: Colorado section 18-12-116 ties an existing large-capacity magazine restriction to a new prohibition on the firearms that accept detachable magazines.
• His own read on the ask: a ruling broad enough to strike down all pre-purchase licensing sits somewhere between slim and none, but the issue belongs in front of the Court before the requirements ratchet upward in time and cost.

About this Drama and Gripe video

Colorado permit-to-purchase licensing is a bigger threat to gun rights than any ban, argues a Rocky Mountain Gun Owners amicus brief in Viramontes v. Cook County. Washington Gun Law president William Kirk walks RMGO's argument: after Colorado's assault weapon ban stalled, Senate Bill 3 returned as a pre-purchase licensing regime requiring paid training and a separate background check before you may buy a semi-automatic rifle. The brief asks the Supreme Court to hold that states may not accomplish indirectly what the Constitution forbids them from doing directly.

Transcript: Colorado permit-to-purchase licensing