Tax, process, capacity, retreat, delay, exclusion, manufacture, search — the toll, the gauntlet, the ceiling, the surrender, the wait, the wall, the forge, and the ledger. Each lawsuit attacks a different side of the same structure, and they’re all on trial at once.
A coalition — SAF, NRA, Firearms Policy Coalition, CSSA, Magnum Shooting Center, and citizen Zachary Langston — argues a tax that singles out a constitutional right is impermissible under the Supreme Court’s Murdock line.
CSSA and five members, represented by Mountain States Legal Foundation — now joined by NRA-ILA counsel — challenge the sheriff’s-card, fee, and mandatory-course regime as a cumulative infringement. Their injunction motion carries sworn declarations from two sheriffs and evidence that most counties can’t issue the card at all.
The U.S. Department of Justice sues to strike Colorado’s 15-round magazine cap as a Second Amendment violation — because magazines over 15 rounds are standard equipment for the most common firearms in the country.
Boulder, Boulder County, Superior, and Louisville each banned “assault weapons” and magazines over ten rounds. Rather than defend them, all four stipulated to stop enforcing — and Judge Nina Y. Wang signed it into an order. Nearly four years later the bans are still on the books and still unenforced.
HB23-1219 (C.R.S. § 18-12-115, effective Oct 1, 2023) bars delivery of a purchased firearm for a minimum of three days. RMGO and advocate Alicia Garcia, represented by Mountain States Legal Foundation, challenge it as a burden on the right to acquire arms — a delay with no founding-era tradition behind it.
Colorado issues concealed-carry permits to residents only and honors few out-of-state permits; Denver bans open carry. Put together, a visitor has no lawful way to bear arms in the city. The NRA and two out-of-state permit holders (Greg Howeth of Hawaii, who owns a home in Weld County, and Zackary Dougherty of South Carolina) sue Denver officials, AG Weiser, and the Dept. of Public Safety. CSSA joined by amended complaint Aug 31.
The 2024 challenge to Colorado’s “ghost gun” law (SB23-279) was amended July 31 to add HB26-1144, which took effect July 1, 2026 and criminalizes making a firearm with a 3D printer or CNC machine. Plaintiffs: NAGR, RMGO, and three individuals. The complaint: “these two statutes effectively prohibit the private manufacturing of any firearm through modern means.”
HB26-1126 (signed June 2, 2026) lets any “duly authorized peace officer” demand a licensed dealer’s records “at all times” — no warrant, no notice, no suspicion — with criminal penalties for refusing. Three gun shops, CSSA, and the Colorado FFL Association bring a Fourth Amendment challenge: dealers face “an impossible choice: submit to unconstitutional searches or face criminal prosecution.”
Both statutes leave the right formally intact and functionally diminished. Neither says “no.” Both say “yes, if” — if you pay, if you apply, if you wait, if you’re approved. Under the founding-era meaning of infringe — to hinder, to encroach — a state-imposed “yes, if” on a constitutional right is the violation. It’s one question wearing eight costumes: does “infringe” mean what it meant? →
The Colorado State Shooting Association is a plaintiff across this fight. The Second Amendment Foundation is in the excise-tax case, and Gun Owners of America carried the NFA ruling. Membership and dollars are what carry it from a courtroom to a repeal. Stand in.
The author of this site is not an attorney and does not practice law. Nothing published here is legal advice, no part of it is offered as legal advice, and reading it creates no attorney-client relationship with anyone. This is Second Amendment advocacy and general-interest commentary written by a private citizen, and it includes opinion.
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