Colorado law currently allows persons to carry a handgun in their place of business for lawful protecting, or in their automobile for protection for lawful protection while traveling. (C.R.S. 18-12-105.) Like Denver, Thornton drastically narrows the statewide law, and allows business owners or travelers to carry only when there is a direct or immediate threat! Thus, proprietors of small businesses, or travelers, are deprived of their right to self-protection. Thornton and Denver apparently expect that small business owners will be able to ask robbers to wait a minute with the robbery, so that the owner can lawfully retrieve their handgun.
Denver carrying. Denver Revised Municipal Code 38-117 forbids the concealed or open carrying of any firearm, any knife with a blade greater than 32 inches in length, or any other dangerous or deadly weapon.
The affirmative defenses to Denver Code 38-117 are found in Denver Code 38-118. The affirmative defenses include carrying in a private automobile or other private means of conveyance for lawful protection of self or another person or property, when there is a direct and immediate threat thereto, while traveling away from the area of ones residence or business; being in ones own dwelling, or place of business, or on property owned or under ones control at the time of the act of carrying such weapon; or being a collector or licensed dealer displaying or transporting such weapon for display or sale. All firearms so displayed or transported shall be unloaded at all times.
Denver ban on guns which melt at the wrong temperature. It is unlawful for any person engaged in the business of selling handguns to sell, rent, exchange, or deliver any handgun having a melting point of less 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or tensile strength of less than 50,000 lbs. per square inch, or metal having a density of less than 7.5 grams per cubic centimeter. This ordinance is ostensibly aimed at protecting foolish consumers from poor quality guns. But the ordinance contains an exemption for police officers. There are only two logical implications which can be drawn from the police exemption:
A. The Denver City Council wants police to use inferior firearms;
B. The Denver City Council wants to disarm poor people by making it illegal to sell inexpensive firearms.
The latter conclusion seems more likely.
Denver ban on guns which frightening in pictures. Denvers assault weapon ban is directly copied--even including typographical errors--from a 1989 California statute. The California statute was created by a few people looking through a picture book of guns, and picking out which guns did not look sporting. The arbitrary list of guns has nothing to do with the guns function; one of the guns banned by Denver is a single-shot shotgun.
The Denver ordinance forbids the carrying, storing, keeping, manufacturing, selling, or otherwise possessing any firearm defined as an assault weapon. It also includes any detachable magazine with a capacity of 21 or more rounds. There is no exemption or affirmative defense for gun shows or exhibits under the ordinance.
Denver juvenile weapons ban: Denvers juvenile weapons ordinance is now touted as the reason for Denvers recent drop in homicides--although the decline in crime in Denver is no greater than the trend in most other large American cities in the same period. And the statewide juvenile handgun law (enacted three months after the Denver ordinance) would remain in place, and restrict most handgun possession by juveniles, even if the Denver ordinance were repealed.
As detailed in a 1993 Independence Institute Issue Paper, the Denver ban goes far beyond any reasonable form of gun control. In Denver, it is currently illegal to allow someone under 16 years old to even touch a gun, even during a safety training class.
It is even illegal for a father and son to drive to a hunting trip in the Yampa Valley, with an unloaded rifle in the rack of a pick-up truck.
Denver property confiscation law: Denvers property confiscation law does not create additional gun controls, but does impose draconian penalties on based on the other gun ordinances.
Among other things, put, the ordinances allow the confiscation of the gun and the car of people with concealed handgun permits who travel through Denver.
The ordinances make a mockery of due process; for example the ordinances declare that judges must enforce them without regard to...the culpability or innocence of those who hold these rights. (Denver R.M.C. 37-70(a).) In some barbaric countries, courts impose a standard of guilty until proven innocent. But the Denver ordinance is even worse than this barbaric standard; the Denver rule that even if you prove yourself innocent, the government will still take your property.
