As St. Paul pushes for local control of assault weapons, Colorado offers a case study
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Under state law, Minnesota cities can’t regulate guns. St. Paul city leaders today are introducing an assault weapon ban anyway.
The ordinance would also ban large-capacity magazines and binary triggers that double the rate of gunfire. It’s a largely symbolic move that’s part of an ongoing push from more than 10 Minnesota cities to get the state to repeal a law that prevents stricter municipal gun laws.
They’re called preemption laws, and most states have them. One state that recently lifted its preemption law is Colorado. Afterward, the city of Boulder took action.
Boulder City Councilman Matt Benjamin joined All Things Considered to share more about it.
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Click the audio player above to hear the conversation with Lopez. The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
What happened in Colorado for the repeal of its preemption law?
Well, sadly, it deals with a tragedy much like your community members have recently faced. We had a mass shooting at my neighborhood grocery store two-tenths of a mile from my house.
Ten community members and one of our police officers were murdered in March of 2021, and so, that was really the catalyst for the state, just three months later, lifting the preemption.
After the repeal, Boulder joined forces with other local jurisdictions to pass new regulations. Why did you take that approach of banding together?
Really, I think part of it was recognizing that whenever you provide local control, or when states do local control on issues, you always end up with a Swiss cheese model — a patchwork of various laws for municipalities.
So, we banded together with our county and our sister cities, Louisville and Superior. That was an attempt in the immediate surrounding area to have a cohesive set of laws in the absence of having state or federal leadership that creates a more blanket and consistent set of reforms and laws.
What regulations were effectively put into place?
We passed an array of ordinances.
We have a ban on the possession of assault weapons, large-capacity magazines and trigger activators like bump stocks. We also have a ban on ghost guns. We’ve raised the minimum age to purchase firearm from 18 to 21.
We’ve instituted a 10-day waiting period for firearm purchases at the dealer sale. And we’ve prohibited open and concealed carry in sensitive locations like city facilities, mental health and substance abuse facilities, religious institutions, grocery stores, etc.
Is there anything that you can point to that would tell you whether the regulations seem to be working and are worthwhile?
Great question, and sadly, we don’t really have any data because the cities that enacted these ordinance were sued by gun rights activists shortly thereafter.
So, our gun laws have been stayed by courts. Until there is resolution of that litigation, we don’t have these gun violence prevention ordinances in place and therefore, there’s really no data to collect.
What do you think are the important conversations that need to be taking place around this?
It’s just so hard, because it’s such an emotionally charged aspect of things — not just for those that have been the victims of gun violence, whether directly or indirectly, but also people who want to reasonably exercise their second amendment rights to bear arms.
I think the key is to not simply just lock ourselves into either camp and just have these echo chamber conversations. There has to be ways in which we have conversations with responsible gun owners who say, “You know what? These are reasonable,” showing that there’s a middle ground and there’s a cross-pollination. Being OK with that and celebrating that shows that it doesn’t have to be one or the other — that there can be a reasonableness in the middle.
