Want to buy a gun in Colorado? You'll have to wait 3 days
The law is now in place. At Colorado gun stores and in private purchases, you can buy a firearm but have to wait three days to receive it.
Bryan Clark is a co-owner of Bristlecone Guns in Lakewood. He doesn't think it will impact business.
"The customer here pays for the gun upon the sale, so that is a little bit of an incentive for the customers to obviously come back and pick up the firearm because they have paid for it," Clark said.
The three days are meant as a cooling-off time, especially for those who might plan to use a gun on themselves.
State Rep. Judy Amabile, a Democrat from Boulder, was one of the sponsors of the waiting period bill. For her, the legislation is personal.
"My son, who has a serious mental illness, told us he was going to kill himself, and then one day we saw he had made a charge at a local gun shop," Amabile added, "It seems like a small thing to ask people to wait a minute to get a gun in order to save a bunch of other people's lives. "
But the new law is already being challenged in a lawsuit filed in federal court by the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners. They tested the law, according to the group's executive director, Taylor Rhodes, "went to the gun shop and attempted to purchase firearms and were told I could not transfer the firearms."
That will bring another court fight over the meaning of "the right to bear arms."
