A bill that would have banned the sale or transfer of so-called assault weapons in Colorado narrowly failed in a Democratic-majority state House committee early Thursday, even after the sponsor of the measure proposed a much narrower prohibition on devices that make semi-automatic weapons fire at a rate similar to automatic firearms.
House Bill 1230 was rejected in a 6-7 vote in the House Judiciary Committee at about 1 a.m. following a 14-hour hearing that featured testimony from hundreds of people, the Colorado Sun reports.
Rep. Elisabeth Epps, a Denver Democrat and the lone prime House sponsor of the bill, proposed two amendments that would have limited the bill to a ban on the sale of either rapid-fire trigger activators and/or bump stocks.
Both failed on 6-7 votes, with three Democrats — Reps. Lindsey Daugherty, Said Sharbini and Marc Snyder — joining the four Republicans on the committee in rejecting the changes.
Snyder, who has voted in favor of other gun control measures this session, said when he was campaigning he told voters he wouldn’t take guns away from law-abiding citizens. “The bill, I believe, does that,” he said.
