A Colorado law banning the sale of large-capacity gun magazines has not stopped their distribution, thanks to a loophole in the law, Denver NBC affiliate KUSA reports. In 2013, a Democratically-controlled state legislature reacting to the Aurora theater shooting passed four comprehensive bills dealing with guns, including one banning magazines that hold more than 15 bullets. A reporter with a hidden camera visited 10 stores and was offered large-capacity magazines disassembled in “parts kits.”
According to one employee at an Arapahoe County gun shop, “It’s just poor wording with the law, which benefits us. We can work around it. It’s a loophole in the wording that they gave that lets us keep selling.” Sen. Rhonda Fields, a Democrat from Aurora, said she was “a little stunned by how open it is.” “Seeing those businesses operating under a loophole that’s in our statute, is just sickening to me,” Fields said after seeing the undercover video shot inside Colorado gun stories in October. The news investigation found two stores that didn’t even bother with the parts-kit subterfuge. “We sell up to 60-round drums for the AR-15, 50-round drums for the .308 and the AR-10s, 75 rounds for the AK,” said an employee of Tacticool Arms at 928 13th St. in Greeley, the county seat for Weld County. The large-capacity magazine ban has been used as a charge 128 times in six years. The majority of the time, the person was charged with another crime, such as a drug or traffic offense, and then the large-capacity magazine violation was included when a large-capacity magazine was discovered as part of the offense. There were at least three instances where the large-capacity magazine violation was the only charge.