Four cities in Boulder County pushed forward a list of gun control measures this week in what could presage a coordinated effort at the local level to enact firearms reforms in Colorado amid a surge of gun violence in the country and a deepening division over what to do about it.
Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette and Superior passed a series of ordinances Tuesday night — among them bans on the possession of assault weapons, raising the age to 21 to own a gun and imposing a 10-day waiting period before delivery of firearm — in an attempt to address a recent spate of mass shootings across the country alongside everyday gun violence on city streets.
In some of the cities, the measures need a second and final vote in the coming weeks to become official.
“I was a high school student in Jefferson County during the Columbine massacre,” Louisville Mayor Ashley Stolzmann told The Denver Post before the council meeting. “I still have my ‘never forgotten’ pin and vividly remember the adults talking about making a change so this never happens again.
Here we are 23 years later, my best friend from high school’s daughter is graduating from high school and nothing has been done to change anything.”
The local approach taken in Boulder County, with backing from national gun control groups, could be coming to other Colorado municipalities in the coming months.
An official with the Giffords Law Center told The Denver Post her group worked with Everytown For Gun Safety to “draft a package of model ordinances that these communities relied on to draft their ordinances.”
Tuesday night’s flurry of action on gun control comes two weeks after a gunman shot dead 19 children and two adults at a Texas elementary school and less than a month after another shooter killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y.
It also comes on the eve of a closely watched ruling expected from the U.S. Supreme Court on a watershed gun case out of New York, where a law restricting the carrying of firearms is being challenged.
Some metro area cities have moved ahead on their own on the controversial issue in recent weeks.
Last month, Denver City Council adopted an ordinance banning concealed carry permit holders from bringing a gun into any city facility or public park. Edgewater on Tuesday passed on first reading a measure disallowing the open carrying of firearms within the city.
Last year, the state
Source:: The Denver Post – News
