A gun used by a man suspected of shooting and killing 10 people at a Boulder King Soopers would have been illegal under the city’s assault weapon ban that was recently blocked by a judge, though nobody ever had been cited under the ban while it was active.
The suspect purchased a Ruger AR-556 pistol on March 16, six days before the mass killing, according to his arrest affidavit. Police recovered a rifle and a handgun inside the grocery store next to the tactical vest believed to be worn by the suspect, according to the affidavit, though it’s not clear whether the Ruger gun is the handgun or the rifle referenced in the document.
The Ruger AR-556 pistol is not technically a rifle, though many features of its design echo a rifle’s set-up.
“It’s not a sporting rifle, it’s not a hunting rifle,” said Joseph Vince, a professor at Mount St. Mary’s University who worked as a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent for more than 30 years. “It’s made for the military and short-range combat.”
The gun comes in two barrel lengths — either 9.5 or 10.5 inches — that are both shorter than the 12-inch definition of a handgun under Colorado law. The gun also has a brace on the back, which allows users to hold the gun against their shoulder for stabilization. Users can also equip a scope and, unlike many other pistols, ammunition is fed to the gun through a detachable magazine that is separate from the pistol’s grip.
It can be fitted with magazines of various capacities, and some retailers sell a Colorado-specific version of the gun that comes with a magazine that holds fewer than 15 rounds. State law bans magazines that hold more than 15 rounds. It’s unclear what kind of magazine the King Soopers suspect purchased.
A Ruger employee said in a video posted to a popular Youtube channel for gun owners that the pistol is “great for all the applications of a pistol or a rifle.” The gun has many of the advantages of a rifle while falling under regulations for a pistol, Vince said.
A gun like the Ruger AR-556 pistol was banned in Boulder until March 12, when a Boulder County District Court judge ruled the city’s ban on assault weapons and magazines with a capacity of more than 10 rounds was illegal. The city’s definition of prohibited assault weapons included semi-automatic pistols that can accept a magazine outside of the pistol grip.
The ruling means that the ban has been unenforceable since March 12, but Boulder police did not issue any citations under the ban during the two years it was in place, according to records received by The Denver Post after filing a public records request. The ordinance also allowed people to keep a banned weapon in their car while traveling in the city.
The city’s ban was put in place in 2018 in the wake of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead. The judge ruled that state law forbidding local governments from passing gun regulations outranked the city’s powers as a home-rule municipality. City officials have not said whether they’ll challenge the ruling.
Colorado law does not ban or define “assault weapons.” The law defines a handgun as having a barrel shorter than 12 inches. The sale and possession of handguns are generally allowed as long as the person meets the states’ requirements for legally owning a gun.
Despite a 2018 misdemeanor conviction, there’s no indication that the King Soopers shooting suspect would’ve been banned from buying a gun in Colorado.
State law does ban machine guns and “short rifles,” defined as “a rifle having a barrel less than 16 inches long or an overall length of less than 26 inches.”
A lapsed 1994 federal ban on assault weapons outlawed semi-automatic pistols with at least two of five characteristics, including allowing the attachment of a flash suppressor or a magazine that attaches outside the pistol grip. The Ruger-brand guns, like the one believed to be used by the King Soopers shooting suspect, have both of those characteristics.
But the federal law expired in 2004, meaning such guns are legal unless banned at the state or local levels.
“What’s occurred is that technology has made tremendous advances but gun laws haven’t kept up with them at all,” Vince said.
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