Last week, briefing was completed in Colorado Outfitters Ass'n v. Hickenlooper, a Tenth Circuit appeal involving Second Amendment challenges to two Colorado gun laws. One law bans magazines of more than 15 rounds. The other requires, among other things, that if a law-abiding citizen wishes to loan a firearm to a friend, they must first go to a gun store together for a background check; when the firearm is returned, they must repeat the process.
In May 2013, a group comprising 55 Colorado sheriffs and numerous nonprofit organizations, gun stores, manufacturers, and individuals sued in federal court. A ten-day bench trial was held in April 2014 -- the first such trial since the Supreme Court's landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller.(In other post-Heller cases, courts have decided the case at summary judgment before trial.) The court subsequently rejected the Plaintiffs' claims, holding neither law violates the Second Amendment.
Plaintiffs appealed to the Tenth Circuit. The parties and numerous amici have now completed hundreds of pages of briefing, and oral argument will be held before a three-judge panel this fall.
The appeal gives the Tenth Circuit its first opportunity to consider the constitutionality of generally applicable gun laws. In the two Second Amendment cases the Tenth Circuit has considered since Heller was decided in 2008, the challenged laws applied not to the law-abiding, but to a subset of the population. United States v. Huitron-Guizar, 678 F.3d 1164 (10th Cir. 2012) ( illegal aliens); United States v. Reese, 627 F.3d 792 (10th Cir. 2010) (subjects of domestic protection orders).
Hale Westfall represents several nonprofits and individuals in the case, including the Colorado Farm Bureau, Colorado Youth Outdoors, and the Colorado Outfitters Association.