New gun laws took effect on Jan. 1 in states that expand and restrict the right to carry a firearm.
Some Democratic-controlled state legislatures passed legislation that includes secure storage regulations and training requirements.
State legislatures with Republican majorities have new gun laws honing in on privacy issues.
Colorado firearm owners who want to store their guns in their vehicles must now lock them in a hard-sided container out of sight, and the vehicle must be locked, with some exceptions.
Later in the year, on July 1, any Coloradan who wants to apply for a concealed carry permit must complete an eight-hour training class, which includes a written test and a live-fire exercise at the range.
The law will also ban anyone who was convicted of certain misdemeanor offenses from getting a concealed carry permit, if those offenses happened within five years of the application.
In Minnesota, a law went into effect on Wednesday that bans binary firearm triggers, a modification that enables a gun to fire one round when the trigger is squeezed and another when it’s released.
University campuses in Delaware are now part of the Safe School Zone, which makes it a felony to possess a firearm on campus.
New York now requires gun dealers to post signs cautioning their clients about the risks of owning a firearm, and the state is establishing a registry of extreme risk protection orders. This will prohibit people from temporarily owning firearms if the guns are deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.
California, similar to New York, now requires gun dealers to give their clients a pamphlet that shows the motivations for and risks of firearm ownership, “including the increased risk of death to someone in the household by suicide, homicide or unintentional injury.”
“This new law, AB 1598, is just another effort by anti-gun Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom to discourage Californians from exercising their constitutional right to become gun owners,” said Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
“Why not force car dealers to provide a pamphlet to each customer, telling them about the dangers of driving?” he wondered. “Owning a car, especially in California, is more dangerous than owning a gun. More people were killed in traffic accidents in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, than from gunshot wounds that year.”
Other gun control measures went into effect in California, including a rule against applying for more than one handgun in a 30-day period.
The bill eliminates an exemption for private party transactions. However, this rule is tangled up in court, so California’s Justice Department won’t enforce it for now, USA Today reported.
Another California gun control law that took hold will broaden considerations for a gun violence restraining order to include threats of violence, specifically threats made against groups protected by hate crime laws and threats of violence to advance political objectives.
“California won’t wait until the next school shooting or mass shooting to act,” Mr. Newsom said in a statement. “In the absence of congressional action, our state is once again leading the way by strengthening our nation-leading gun laws.”
Kentucky and New Hampshire aimed at legislation that prohibited assigning a “merchant category code.”
Both states joined more than a dozen others that passed this kind of law since the International Organization for Standardization established the code for gun retailers as a way to classify businesses by the items they sell.
Other states, like California and Colorado, passed laws last year that forced credit cards to assign unique codes to stores that sell firearms.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.