DENVER, Colorado — Colorado's newest gun law has survived its first big court test. Senior U.S. District Judge William J. Martinez, sitting in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado in Denver, has denied a motion for a preliminary injunction that would have blocked enforcement of SB25-003, the state's permit-to-purchase law for what the statute calls "specified semiautomatic firearms." The ruling, set out in a 35-page opinion and reported across Colorado on November 5, 2026, means the law stays in force while the underlying lawsuit, Del Toro v. Polis, Case No. 1:25-cv-02725, continues.
Source: Briefly / Wansom summary of the Martinez opinion, Nov 5, 2026
The challengers are the Colorado State Shooting Association (CSSA) and individual gun owners. The defendants, sued in their official capacities, are Governor Jared Polis, Attorney General Phil Weiser, Fourth Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen and Colorado Parks and Wildlife director Laura Clellan. The association first sued on September 2, 2025 — eleven months before the permit provisions took effect — and on August 11, 2026, ten days after the requirement went live, it asked the court to block the scheme while the case proceeds.
The holding: the case failed at Bruen's first step
Judge Martinez's reasoning turned on the framework the U.S. Supreme Court set in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022). At the first step of that test, a challenger must show that the Second Amendment's plain text covers the conduct and the arms at issue. The judge concluded the plaintiffs had not done that: in the summaries of the opinion published this week, he found they did not demonstrate that "law-abiding citizens commonly use specified semiautomatic firearms today for self-defense" — and, as the Daily Letter put it in its headline on the ruling, that the challengers never proved the rifles are protected "arms" at that threshold step.
Because the plaintiffs failed at step one, Judge Martinez did not proceed to step two — the inquiry into whether Colorado's law is consistent with the nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation. The opinion is a denial of a preliminary injunction, not a final judgment on the law's constitutionality: the lawsuit itself continues, and the question the court answered was the narrower one of whether the challengers had shown a substantial likelihood of success on the merits sufficient to freeze the law now. On that question, the judge said no.
What SB25-003 actually requires
SB25-003, formally the "Act Concerning the Prohibition of Certain Semiautomatic Firearms and Rapid-Fire Devices," was signed by Governor Polis in April 2025 after passing the Democratic-controlled legislature; its sponsors were Senators Tom Sullivan and Julie Gonzales and Representatives Andrew Boesenecker and Meg Froelich. From August 1, 2026, it prohibits the sale, manufacture and transfer of most semiautomatic rifles and shotguns that accept a detachable magazine, along with a smaller group of gas-operated semiautomatic handguns — unless the buyer first completes the state's new eligibility process. Firearms people already own are unaffected: possession of existing guns remains legal.
Source: Kim Monson Show reporting on SB25-003 and the Del Toro filings
The process runs through Colorado's 64 county sheriffs. A would-be buyer must obtain a firearms safety course eligibility card: the safety course must be taught by an instructor verified by a county sheriff, and the results of the final examination are recorded in a statewide database. Only with that card in hand can a buyer lawfully purchase a covered firearm. The law sits on top of Colorado's existing rules — a 15-round magazine limit in place since 2013, a three-day waiting period before delivery, universal background checks and a minimum purchase age of 21.
The cost fight inside the case
Much of the challengers' August motion was about money and machinery, not doctrine. The plaintiffs told the court that one prospective buyer's costs "can exceed $589 before an applicant has purchased a firearm in the first instance," including a $132.10 Denver sheriff's fee — more, they noted, than an entry-level AR-15 sells for. Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell, who testified against the bill at three legislative hearings, put his office's first-year cost of running the program at $587,958.29 in a sworn declaration, with annual operating costs estimated at $433,055.41 after that. Those figures are the plaintiffs' filing claims, presented to the court as part of their case; the state disputed the motion, and this week's ruling addressed the constitutional threshold rather than adopting either side's cost account.
Source: Kim Monson Show — Shooting association asks court to block SB25-003 permit scheme (motion details)
According to the plaintiffs' motion, Teller County has declined to take permit applications — and so have Montezuma County and Bent County. That refusal is part of the practical fight over SB25-003: the law routes every buyer through a county sheriff, so a sheriff who will not run the intake can leave local buyers with no local door to knock on, whatever Denver decides.
Why this ruling reaches beyond Colorado
Federal appeals courts are split on whether bans and permit regimes covering popular semiautomatic rifles survive Bruen, and summaries of this week's opinion note that the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to address that circuit split in its current term. A district-level ruling from Denver does not settle that national question, but it is now part of the record both sides will cite: gun-rights groups have a first-step loss to appeal or distinguish, and states defending similar laws have a 35-page opinion holding that challengers must first prove common self-defense use. For Colorado's Punjabi and wider immigrant communities — including families in the Denver metro and the state's trucking corridors who buy firearms for home and business protection like their neighbours — the practical meaning is immediate and local: the permit card, the sheriff-verified course and the statewide exam database remain the law of the state today.
What happens next
Three tracks now run at once. First, Del Toro v. Polis continues in Denver: the denial of a preliminary injunction leaves the merits fight — and any appeal of this ruling to the Tenth Circuit — still to come. Second, the permit system itself keeps operating through the 64 sheriffs, including the counties the plaintiffs say have refused applications, a friction point that could generate its own litigation. Third, the politics move: Attorney General Weiser, a named defendant defending the law, was elected governor on November 3 and is sworn in on January 12, 2027, succeeding the term-limited Governor Polis — so the official who defended SB25-003 in court will soon be the official responsible for administering it.