Colorado lawmakers passed HB26-1126 requirements for firearms dealers this year, which requires companies to store customer information for law enforcement to inspect.
DENVER (CN) – Several firearms dealers sued Colorado in federal court Monday arguing that a new law’s requirement for gun stores to keep a record of customer transactions for inspection by law enforcement violates the Fourth Amendment.
“The Fourth Amendment broadly protects businesses from unreasonable searches, including businesses engaged in commerce with customers who are not exercising independent constitutional rights,” the plaintiffs wrote in 33 page complaint.
Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed the Firearms Dealer Requirements Act on June 2, which requires dealers to keep records of all transactions, as well as a registry of gun owners that can be inspected by law enforcement.
Merchants who refuse to allow their records to be checked can be charged with a Class 2 misdemeanor.
In addition to the lack of limits on how often the searches can be conducted, the plaintiffs argue in the complaint that the searches have “no defined scope” and “no pre-compliance review.”
Led by the Centennial Gun Club, five firearms dealers and organizations called Polis, Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, and Colorado Department of Revenue Executive Director Heidi Humphreys as defendants.
“The regime,” the gun shops wrote in the complaint, “also harms plaintiffs’ customers, who face the prospect that their lawful firearm purchases will be monitored without guaranteed protection, chilling the exercise of constitutionally protected rights.”
In the lawsuit, the groups argue that the Fourth Amendment was enacted after colonists were subjected to illegal inspections through “writs of assistance” under the guise of searches for contraband goods.
“It was those unreasonable and questionable searches that patriot James Otis objected to in the Paxton Case in 1761, ‘perhaps the most prominent event that inaugurated colonial resistance to the oppressions of the mother country’ and ‘helped spark the Revolution itself,'” the groups argue in the lawsuit.
Centennial state lawmakers also passed restrictions on 3D printed weapon parts AND serializing barrel this past legislative session, which some opponents promised to challenge in court.
A representative of the Attorney General declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The gun clubs are represented by attorney Michael Francisco of the DC firm First & Fourteenth PLLC.
The case has been assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Cyrus Y. Chung.
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