Reporter
Assault weapons. What is the definition of an assault weapon? The effort by Democrats and the state legislature to ban the sale of assault weapons in Colorado requires a couple pages. Just to define what constitutes an assault weapon. Politics guy, Marshall Ellinger took those definitions to a gun store to see what would come off the shelves.
Kyle Clark:
The term assault weapon conjures up certain images like AR style rifles.
Gun Shop Owner:
This is pretty much what I think of people thinking is an assault weapon.
Kyle Clark:
But at a gun dealer, there is no assault weapons section.
Gun Shop Owner:
In an industry like ours, we tend to be more technical and use technical or military type terms to describe the firearms.
Kyle Clark:
Brian Clark, co-owner of Bristle Cone shooting training and retail center in Lakewood helped us take this 18 page bill to ban the sale of assault weapons in Colorado and turn these words into actual guns that would be banned like rifles with pistol grips or stocks that fold or detach, which shrink the length of the rifle and this shroud, which keeps a shooter from being burned.
Gun Shop Owner:
Yes, most people understand this is an assault weapon. Most people don't think this is
Kyle Clark:
The reason the handgun he's holding would be considered an assault weapon is because it has a detachable magazine and one of several accessories. The legislation would ban, in this case a threaded barrel
Gun Shop Owner:
On the end of the barrel. There are threads
Kyle Clark:
That allows for a suppressor, what you might call a silencer, to be attached to the gun, which would make this gun illegal to buy.
Gun Shop Owner:
It doesn't have anything to do with the rate of fire, it doesn't control recoil, those types of things.
Kyle Clark:
The bill would also ban guns with detachable magazines and what's known as a muzzle break, which can help with recoil control.
Gun Shop Owner:
It's not helping the firearm fire quicker, it's just helping the user to reacquire its target quicker. And again, if you're being attacked, if you're trying to protect your family, something of that nature in an incident, that's a feature that you want. Some of the features that are being called out in this bill are also the features that people are looking for for self-defense, home defense, that kind of thing.
Kyle Clark:
This was simply to show you what the legislation would do. Pages of words to define assault weapon in Colorado, which is actually different than the 1994 federal ban, which required the guns to have detachable magazines and two accessory features. This bill is Detachable Magazine and just one accessory.
Reporter
And this is important, Marshall, because sometimes people get on us when they hear us say, so-called assault weapon and we feel like we have to qualify it because there is no legal definition of assault weapon at least until one is put on the books. So it means different things to different people
Kyle Clark:
In different states that try this type of ban to find guns, assault weapons differently. And that's why that's so-called and when we went into the store and were shown this handgun, people don't generally think of that as an assault weapon, but if you take the words of the bill and make it into an actual gun, that would be roped into what would be banned based on how you're defining assault weapon in Colorado.
Reporter
Aren't a lot of people that think that this can actually get to legislature and get signed by the governor, but it has gotten farther than it got last year. So we'll keep watching Marshall. Thank you.
Credit: Next 9News