Colorado gun rights took a leap backward over the weekend as Democrat Gov. Jared Polis signed legislation essentially gutting the Centennial State’s firearms preemption law, thus allowing local municipalities to establish their own gun control laws.

It returns Colorado to a checkerboard situation where neighboring jurisdictions might have different, perhaps conflicting gun laws that confuse, and according to some critics, possibly even ensnare gun owners into situations where they might be violating a local law by crossing an invisible jurisdictional line.

At the same time, Gov. Polis signed another measure establishing an “Office of Gun Violence Prevention,” whose job will be to coordinate and promote efforts to reduce “gun violence.” The bill provides $3 million in funding for this new office.

According to the Denver Post, Senate Bill 21-256 “reverses a ban that keeps local governments (towns, cities and counties) from creating their own gun regulations.

“But local jurisdictions can only make ordinances that are stricter, not more lenient, than state law,” the newspaper explained. “Any regulations currently in place that are less restrictive are effectively overturned. A person can only face a criminal penalty for violating local laws if they knew about them or reasonably should have known. The new law also puts concealed-carry requirements back in the hands of the state so they’re consistent, but it does allow local governments to decide where those guns can be carried.”

https://www.libertyparkpress.com/col...ng-preemption/