Colorado Moms Demand Action Volunteers Applaud House Committee for Advancing Legislation to Close the Charleston Loophole and Help Keep Guns Out of the Hands of People With Violent Histories

The Colorado chapters of Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, both part of Everytown for Gun Safety, released the following statements after Colorado lawmakers advanced HB21-1298, a bill that would help ensure that people with recent violent criminal convictions cannot access firearms and close the Charleston Loophole in Colorado, a loophole which allows people to purchase firearms with an incomplete background check if a background check is not completed in three business days.

This bill is part of a suite of gun violence prevention measures introduced last week with the intention of preventing tragedies like the recent mass shooting in Boulder, in which ten people were shot and killed, as well as the hundreds of lives taken and forever changed by gun violence every day.

“Our state’s gun violence crisis is tragic, urgent, and most importantly, preventable,” said Mary Liz Callaway, volunteer with Colorado Moms Demand Action. “This bill would remedy the fatal gaps that allowed the Boulder shooter and too many others to purchase guns. The committee took an important step toward making Colorado a safer place.”

“We cannot keep living in a world where people with violent histories can easily get guns– it makes no sense and it puts us all in danger,” said Charlotte Combe, volunteer with Students Demand Action in Colorado. “The policies legislators supported by advancing HB 1298 would save lives. We are thankful to lawmakers for taking bold action to protect Coloradans and prevent future gun violence.”

What to know about HB21-1298:

• HB21-1298 would help ensure that people with recent violent criminal convictions cannot access firearms by prohibiting people who have been convicted in the last five years of certain violent misdemeanor crimes, including assault, from purchasing firearms. 
• The bill would also close the Charleston Loophole in Colorado, a loophole which allows people to purchase firearms by default if a background check is not completed in three business days, even if they ultimately would not be able to pass the background check.

Statistics about gun violence in Colorado are available here, and information on how Colorado’s gun laws compare to other states’ overall is available here.