Semiautomatic Firearms Selling Like Hotcakes As Gun Owners Try To Beat Clock On Colorado Licensing Scheme

Modern semiautomatic firearms are flying off the shelves in Colorado in the days before a new “permit to purchase” scheme goes into effect, according to a local media outlet.

In April 2025, Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed legislation initially introduced as an outright ban on so-called “assault weapons” that requires anyone wishing to buy a modern semiautomatic firearm, including the AR-15 rifle, to first receive a firearms safety course eligibility card, then to complete a firearms safety course within five years. One firearms dealer had restocked three times, according to the Pikes Peak Courier.

“We are jam-packed,” Justin Green, owner of SDS Guns in Colorado Springs, told the Courier.

Over 6500 requests for background checks were pending at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI), with the state’s three day waiting period making the last day to purchase a semiautomatic firearm July 28, the Courier reported. The new requirements include a training course of 12 hours that could cost up to $500, according to the Courier.

Colorado passed a ban on standard-capacity magazines holding more than 15 rounds of ammunition in 2013, months after a mass shooting in an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater. The state has received high grades from gun-control organizations Everytown and Giffords Law Center for its laws, while the Trump administration sued Denver over its outright ban on modern semiautomatic firearms and also took the state to court over its magazine ban.

Colorado’s “permit to purchase” scheme is taking effect weeks after the Supreme Court granted writs of certiorari in Viramontes v. Cook County, Illinois and Grant v. Higgins, involving bans on modern semiautomatic firearms imposed by Cook County, Illinois, (which includes the city of Chicago) and the state of Connecticut. The court elected to consolidate the cases for hearing in its term starting in October.

In an article published May 13, The New York Times noted that not only was the AR-15 a popular rifle, but that modern semiautomatic firearms bearing a superficial resemblance to the AK-47 were previously “ubiquitous” before the AR-15’s ascendance among the general public. The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimated in January that over 32 million “modern sporting rifles” were in circulation.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit struck down New Jersey’s ban on modern semiautomatic firearms in a July 18 ruling authored by Circuit Judge Arianna Julia Freeman, a Biden appointee. In Virginia, a judge blocked that state’s ban on modern semiautomatic firearms, and the case is on hold pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Viramontes.

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