How about enforcing the laws we have?
Each day in Colorado, nearly 14 people who should not legally own a gun attempt to purchase one, according to data from 2025. Among these, a higher percentage have felony convictions, domestic violence charges, or are undocumented immigrants. While the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) processes over 500,000 background checks annually, approximately 1.5% are denied due to disqualifying factors, with 3.08% of checks denied in 2020 — a rate higher than in previous years.
Despite these denials being reported via the Instacheck system to law enforcement and federal agencies, action is rarely taken. For example, Mohamed Soliman, an undocumented immigrant who later carried out a terrorist attack in Boulder, was denied gun purchases in Colorado Springs and El Paso County in 2024, but no law enforcement agency acted on the notifications.
Experts and prosecutors report that despite being notified, agencies often fail to follow up. Jefferson County DA Alexis King said she received only two referrals from CBI in a year for prosecution, and even those were weak. CBI acknowledges it has been slow to implement systems to flag and investigate denied purchases, even though lawmakers allocated funding for this purpose.
Thus, while thousands of ineligible individuals are flagged annually, there is no public data on how many were actually caught or prosecuted for attempting to buy guns illegally. The system identifies attempts but lacks enforcement mechanisms to act on them.