Last week, the Colorado State Shooting Association (CSSA), the official state affiliate of NRA, filed a lawsuit challenging Senate Bill 25-003, the "Polis Permission Slip" permit-to-purchase scheme.
SB 25-003 mandates that beginning August 1, 2026, Coloradans’ constitutional right to acquire a semiautomatic is now accessible only after surmounting gratuitous government prior restraints and fee schedules. There is now a permit-to-purchase scheme in place for semi-automatic firearms—this includes rifles, shotguns, and handguns equipped with a detachable magazine. Ultimately, the law now places an incredible amount of restrictions on law-abiding citizens including prohibiting the sale, purchase, distribution, or transfer of these firearms without first completing a 12-hour training course (unless a person has already completed a hunter’s safety course, in which case it would 4 hours); requiring passage of a written exam by a minimum of 90%; inclusion in a database, i.e. gun registry, of exam takers; payment of requisite fees; and obtaining permission via an eligibility permit from a local sheriff based on “may-issue” criteria. County sheriffs can deny an applicant for merely a “reasonable belief” and can revoke a permit under the same standard with renewal required every five years, further adding to the overwhelming constitutional concerns facing Coloradans.
The case was filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado, and is captioned Del Toro V. Polis.
Please stay tuned to the NRA-ILA and CSSA websites and your inbox for updates as this litigation progresses.