Colorado’s 2026 Gun Legislation Recap: New Restrictions, One Veto, and a Failed Barrel Bill

The Colorado General Assembly adjourned its 2026 legislative session on May 13 after once again considering a wide range of bills affecting firearms, gun stores, concealed carry, extreme risk protection orders, background checks, firearm manufacturing, social media speech, and even individual gun barrels.

For gun owners, the final results were bad but could have been worse. Four of the bills opposed by We The Second became law. One additional bill passed both chambers but was vetoed by Governor Jared Polis. A proposal to regulate and track firearm barrels passed the Senate and survived its first major House votes, but ultimately died when lawmakers failed to take a final vote before adjournment.

Meanwhile, every significant pro-Second Amendment bill tracked during the session was killed in a Democrat-controlled House committee without receiving a vote from the full chamber.

Here is what happened.

SB26-004: Institutions Can Now File Red Flag Petitions (OPPOSE)

Final status: Signed into law

Senate Bill 26-004 expands the list of people and organizations authorized to “Red Flag” individuals and petition a court for an extreme risk protection order.

Colorado’s existing Red Flag ERPO law already allowed certain family members, household members, law enforcement officers, licensed medical professionals, educators, and district attorneys to seek an order temporarily removing a person’s firearms. SB26-004 added co-responders working in community response programs and created a new category of “institutional petitioners.”

Those institutional petitioners include health-care facilities, behavioral-health treatment facilities, school districts, charter schools, private schools, the State Charter School Institute, colleges, and universities.

Existing concerns around due process and civilian disarmament using Red Flag laws aside, the practical concern is that a petition may now originate from an institution rather than an individual who personally knows the gun owner. The bill significantly increases the number of people capable of initiating a court process that can result in a person losing access to firearms, in an ex-parte hearing, meaning the gun owner isn’t even aware a petition has been filed until their guns are taken.

The bill passed the Senate 20-13 and the House 39-24. Governor Polis signed it on April 6, 2026.

HB26-1144: Ban on Privately Manufacturing Firearms with 3D Printers and CNC Machines (OPPOSE)

Final status: Signed into law

House Bill 26-1144 began as an extraordinarily broad proposal aimed not only at privately manufactured firearms but also at the digital information used to produce them. Earlier versions targeted the possession and distribution of firearm manufacturing files.

That portion was ultimately removed.

The enacted version instead makes it illegal for most Coloradans to knowingly manufacture a potentially functioning firearm, unfinished frame or receiver, magazine that can hold more than 15 rounds, or a rapid-fire device using what the bill defines as “three-dimensional printing.” That definition includes both additive manufacturing, such as a traditional 3D printer, and subtractive manufacturing, which captures CNC mills and similar machines.

This means the final law is not limited to plastic guns printed on a home printer. It also applies to machining metal or polymer with computer-controlled equipment.

The law contains exemptions for federally licensed firearm manufacturers and for accredited gunsmithing programs, including their instructors and students. A first violation is a class 1 misdemeanor. A second or subsequent violation is a class 5 felony. The prohibition applies only when the resulting firearm or component is potentially functional.

The House passed the bill 40-25. The Senate passed it 23-12, after which the House repassed the amended version 40-23. Governor Polis signed it on May 4.

The removal of the digital-file provisions prevented the bill from becoming a direct ban on possessing or sharing computer code, but it also created redundant laws around manufacturing. Colorado already prohibits the manufacture of frames and receivers using CNC devices and 3D printing under it’s 2024 Ghost Gun law, and possession of so-called “high capacity magazines” and rapid fire trigger devices is already illegal. This leave prosecutors with the ability to “charge stack” when seeking convictions. 

HB26-1126: Expanded Regulation and Record Keeping for Gun Stores (OPPOSE)

Final status: Signed into law

House Bill 26-1126 substantially expands Colorado’s state firearm dealer regulatory system.

The law clarifies that a dealer must have a Colorado firearm dealer permit not simply to operate a retail store, but to conduct firearm transfers. It extends licensing and training requirements to the dealer’s “responsible persons,” meaning individuals with direct or indirect authority over the management and policies of the business.

It also extends employee-related requirements to independent contractors, volunteers, and other paid or unpaid individuals who handle firearms, process transactions, or otherwise have access to firearms.

The law expands Colorado’s dealer record-keeping mandate from retail transactions involving pistols and revolvers to essentially all retail firearm transactions other than destructive devices. Records may be stored electronically.

The final bill does contain language prohibiting the Department of Revenue or another state agency from using those dealer records to create or maintain a registry identifying firearm ownership, although that does not eliminate the underlying concern that Colorado is requiring dealers to maintain a much broader electronic trail of firearm transactions, placing detailed ownership information in records that can be inspected or obtained by armed agents of the state through the Department of Revenue at any time, for any reason.

The law also requires gun stores to secure any magazines over 15 rounds in their possession, submit comprehensive security plans to enforcement authorties, and implement state-approved security measures beginning October 1, 2027. Dealers must report a lost or stolen firearm to the department within 48 hours.

For second or subsequent violations of specified requirements committed on or after January 1, 2027, the department may impose fines of up to $75,000.

The House passed HB26-1126 by a relatively narrow 34-28 vote. It later passed the Senate and was signed by Governor Polis on June 2.

The bill represents another step toward treating gun stores as one of the most heavily regulated types of legal businesses in Colorado. Its expansive penalties and security mandates will be particularly burdensome for small, independent dealers that do not have corporate compliance departments or significant financial reserves.

HB26-1302: CBI Can Set Its Own InstaCheck Operating Hours (OPPOSE)

Final status: Signed into law; effective August 12, 2026

Under previous law, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation was required to operate the InstaCheck firearm background-check system for 12 hours every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas.

House Bill 26-1302 removes that fixed operating requirement and allows CBI to determine the operating hours that it believes best meet its business needs.

The final version requires CBI to continue accepting background-check requests every day other than Thanksgiving and Christmas and to place requests into the processing queue immediately, although they only have to process them out of the queue during business hours, which again, they get to determine what those hours will be.

The concern is that Colorado law prohibits a dealer from completing a firearm transfer until the required background-check approval is received plus a 3-day wait period. Giving CBI more control over its staffing and operating schedule therefore gives the agency substantial practical control over when lawful firearm transactions can be completed and opens the door to additional ways to restrict our Second Amendment rights.

The House passed the bill 42-21 and the Senate passed it 22-13. Governor Polis signed it on June 3, and it is scheduled to take effect on August 12, 2026.

This bill initially has bi-partisan support but after serious backlash from gun owners, the Republican bill sponsor pulled his name and the Republican supporters in the house flipped their votes. The final vote was strictly on party-lines with every Democrat voting in support, and every Republican opposing it.

HB26-1255: Social Media Reporting and Rapid Search-Warrant Compliance (OPPOSE)

Final status: Passed the legislature but vetoed by Governor Polis

House Bill 26-1255 was one of the broadest and most troubling bills of the session from a free-speech and privacy perspective.

The bill would have required a social media operator to report a user to that user’s local law-enforcement agency within 24 hours when the platform took one of several specified adverse actions against the account. Failure to report could have been prosecuted as a violation of the Colorado Consumer Protection Act.

It also would have required social media companies to maintain a continuously available law-enforcement contact system, including a staffed hotline for questions about search warrants. Companies would have been required to acknowledge receipt of a warrant within eight hours and, in many circumstances, comply with it within 24 hours.

The proposal created an obvious risk that private companies would overreport lawful social media posts to protect themselves from state enforcement. Firearm-related conversations, images, jokes, sales discussions, manufacturing content, or political speech could have been flagged without law enforcement first establishing probable cause that a crime had occurred.

The bill also removed the requirement that a covered social media platform have at least 100,000 active Colorado users, potentially extending the mandate to much smaller websites and online communities.

HB26-1255 barely passed the Senate on an 18-17 vote. The House initially passed it 36-29 and later repassed the Senate-amended bill 35-30.

Governor Polis vetoed the measure on May 28 on free speech grounds.

The veto prevented the state from forcing private online platforms into becoming a broad, state-mandated reporting network. It was one of the most significant defeats for gun-control and surveillance legislation during the 2026 session.

A similar bill, but more focused on responding to active warrants, did pass into law. 

SB26-043: Firearm Barrel Sales and Buyer Records (OPPOSE)

Final status: Died when the session ended

Senate Bill 26-043 would have imposed an entirely new regulatory system on firearm barrels.

The bill required most firearm barrels to be sold or transferred in person through a federally licensed firearm dealer (FFL). A private individual who was not an FFL would have been prohibited from possessing a barrel with the intent to sell, transfer, or offer it for transfer.

Violations would have been unclassified misdemeanors. Buyers generally would have needed to be at least 18 years old and legally eligible to purchase a firearm. Dealers would have been required to record firearm barrel transactions on a state-created form and retain those records for at least five years.

A barrel is not federally regulated as a firearm and does not currently require a background check, federal transfer form, or dealer involvement. SB26-043 would therefore have created a Colorado-only tracking system for an ordinary firearm component.

The Senate passed the bill 19-16. It then passed House committee and second reading, but House leadership repeatedly delayed the final vote. On May 13, the last day of the session, the bill was laid over until May 14, a date after the legislature had constitutionally adjourned. It died without a final House vote.

Its defeat was significant. Had it passed, Colorado would have established a model for regulating individual gun parts in much the same manner as complete firearms, something we have only seen in one other state: California.

HB26-1021: The Second Amendment Protection Act (SUPPORT)

Final status: Killed in House Judiciary

House Bill 26-1021 was the most comprehensive pro-Second Amendment bill introduced during the session.

The legislation proposed repealing a large portion of Colorado’s firearm-control framework, including the three-day waiting period, the private-transfer background-check mandate, the age-21 purchase restriction, firearm dealer permitting requirements, ammunition-sale regulations, restrictions on unserialized firearms, storage mandates, firearm-industry liability standards, gun-show regulations, portions of the large-capacity magazine ban, local gun-control authority, and the semiautomatic firearm purchase and training system created by SB25-003.

It also would have repealed the Office of Gun Violence Prevention and returned money remaining in certain firearm-related cash funds.

The House Judiciary Committee rejected a motion to send the bill to Appropriations by a vote of 4-7 and then postponed the measure indefinitely, also 7-4. It never received a vote on the House floor.

HB26-1108: FBI Rap Back Fingerprint Monitoring (OPPOSE)

Final status: Killed unanimously in House Judiciary

House Bill 26-1108 would have authorized CBI to participate in the FBI’s Rap Back Service.

Rap Back allows authorized government agencies to receive continuing notifications when new criminal-history activity is associated with a person who previously submitted fingerprints for a background check.

Because fingerprints are submitted for concealed handgun permits and many occupational licenses, the bill raised questions about how long a person would remain enrolled, what events would generate a notification, and whether individuals would clearly understand that a one-time fingerprint submission would result in continual FBI surveillance.

Unlike most firearm bills, HB26-1108 had bipartisan sponsorship. However, the House Judiciary Committee postponed it indefinitely on a unanimous 9-0 vote on February 24.

HB26-1072: Repealing Colorado’s Red Flag Law (SUPPORT)

Final status: Killed in House State Affairs

House Bill 26-1072 would have codified an individual right to own, possess, and use firearms to the maximum extent permitted by the United States and Colorado constitutions.

It also would have repealed Colorado’s extreme risk protection order law in its entirety, including both temporary and longer-term ERPOs.

The House State, Civic, Military, and Veterans Affairs Committee rejected a motion to send the bill to Appropriations by a vote of 3-8. The committee then postponed the bill indefinitely by the reverse vote of 8-3.

It never reached the House floor.

HB26-1212: Constitutional Carry and Lifetime Permits (SUPPORT)

Final status: Killed in House Judiciary

House Bill 26-1212 would have allowed a person who was at least 18 years old and legally permitted to possess a handgun to carry it concealed without first obtaining a government permit.

The bill would have retained Colorado’s permitting system for people who wanted a permit for reciprocity in other states. It also would have lowered the minimum permit age to 18, converted most existing permits into lifetime permits, eliminated renewals, and removed local government authority to regulate open or concealed handgun carry.

The House Judiciary Committee rejected a motion to send the measure to Appropriations by a vote of 4-7 and then postponed it indefinitely by a vote of 7-4.

As with the other pro-rights bills, constitutional carry was never allowed a vote before the full House.

The Bottom Line

The 2026 session did not produce a sweeping semiautomatic firearm ban like the measure passed in 2025, but it continued Colorado’s steady expansion of firearm regulation. And what did not pass will certainly be back in 2027. 

The legislature expanded the red flag system, restricted private firearm manufacturing, enlarged the state’s gun-store regulatory and record-keeping apparatus, and gave CBI greater discretion over background-check operating hours.

At the same time, lawmakers came remarkably close to creating a state tracking and dealer-transfer system for firearm barrels. That bill did not fail because a majority of the House formally rejected it. It failed because the final vote was delayed until the clock ran out.

Governor Polis’ veto of HB26-1255 stopped the most direct attempt of the session to conscript social media platforms into reporting users to law enforcement. It was a meaningful victory for both privacy and free speech.

For Colorado gun owners, the 2026 session was not as catastrophic as 2025. It was, however, another year in which the state added new crimes, new records, new regulatory authority, and new restrictions while refusing to seriously consider restoring the rights it has taken away.