Colorado Democrats are at it again, this time targeting something as innocuous as gun barrels with a draconian record-keeping mandate that reeks of incremental gun control creep. The proposed legislation would force all barrel sales—yes, just the tubes that make a firearm functional—through Federal Firearms License (FFL) dealers, who must then log buyers’ full names, addresses, phone numbers, and other personal details in a bureaucratic black book. This isn’t about safety; it’s a backdoor registry in the making, disguised as oversight for a state already choking under red-flag laws, assault weapon bans, and magazine limits. Proponents claim it’s to curb ghost guns, but let’s call it what it is: a fishing expedition to track law-abiding gun owners piece by piece.
Dig deeper, and the implications for the Second Amendment community are chilling. Barrels aren’t serialized under federal law like receivers, precisely to avoid this kind of piecemeal registration that could later be stitched together into a full firearm database—ATF’s dream scenario. By routing everything through FFLs, Colorado’s forcing small gunsmiths, hobbyists, and custom builders out of business or underground, inflating costs and killing innovation in a state with a proud custom rifle tradition. We’ve seen this playbook before: California’s microstamping mandates and New York’s serialized brace rules started small, then snowballed into outright confiscation blueprints. For 2A folks, it’s a signal to mobilize—rally at the Capitol, flood lawmakers’ inboxes, and support groups like the NRA or Rocky Mountain Gun Owners before this spreads like wildfire to purple states like Nevada or Arizona.
The silver lining? Exposure like this galvanizes the community. With the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision demanding historical analogs for restrictions, this barrel grab lacks any 1791 precedent—barrels were blacksmith-forged without government busybodies. Gun owners, stock up on barrels now (legally, of course), vote like your rights depend on it, and keep the pressure on. Colorado’s Dem supermajority might pass it, but nullification efforts and recalls are brewing. Stay vigilant; the Second Amendment isn’t maintained by complacency.
