Sweeping semiautomatic gun restriction signed into law by Colorado governor

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Sweeping semiautomatic gun restriction signed into law by Colorado governor

2025-04-11 07:31 Last Updated At：07:40

DENVER (AP) — People in Colorado will soon have to pass a background check and complete a state-sanctioned safety course to buy most semiautomatic guns with detachable magazines under a bill signed into law by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday.

Colorado, which has seen some of the country’s worst mass shootings — including the 2022 killings at the LGBTQ+ nightspot Club Q in Colorado Springs and the 1999 Columbine High School massacre — joins nearly a dozen other states in requiring some level of safety training or an exam to purchase a firearm.

One of the most restrictive gun control measures to be passed in the state as part of a long-running Democratic campaign to curtail gun violence, the law takes full effect in August 2026.

“We can’t afford not to do all we can to change the continuing impact of gun violence,” said bill sponsor and state Sen. Tom Sullivan, whose son, Alex, was killed in a 2013 shooting at a theater in Aurora. Speaking at the bill signing, he added that the measure is “just the next step we have undertaken on that effort.”

Republicans and other opponents contend that the measure violates the Second Amendment, and at last one organization, Rocky Mountain Gun owners, was considering a legal challenge.

The several layers of hurdles that the law requires to purchase these guns, and the accompanying costs and potential backlogs, make “it a more or less administrative ban,” said Ian Escalante, executive director of the gun rights group.

Previous attempts at securing an all-out ban on certain semiautomatic guns, as has been done in deeply Democratic states including New York and California, floundered in more purple Colorado where many including the governor have something of a libertarian streak.

“I really think this bill will make Colorado communities safer and prevent both accidents as well as reduce gun violence, and ultimately that means saving lives while protecting our Second Amendment rights,” Polis said.

The proposal was watered down from a flat ban on sale of most semiautomatics with detachable magazines, including rifles and some pistols. Proponents argued that allowing only permanently attached magazines would force a would-be shooter to reload bullet by bullet.

The final bill as signed is a concession to Polis and other Democrats wary of going too far.

Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

UK's top court says definition of a woman is based on biological sex and excludes transgender people

2025-04-16 21:05 Last Updated At：21:12

LONDON (AP) — The U.K. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a woman is someone born biologically female, excluding transgender people from the legal definition in a long-running dispute between a feminist group and the Scottish government.

Several women's groups that supported the appeal celebrated outside court and hailed it as a major victory in their effort to protect spaces designated for women.

“Everyone knows what sex is and you can’t change it,” said Susan Smith, co-director of For Women Scotland, which brought the case. “It’s common sense, basic common sense and the fact that we have been down a rabbit hole where people have tried to deny science and to deny reality and hopefully this will now see us back to reality.”

Five judges ruled unanimously that the U.K. Equality Act means trans women can be excluded from some groups and single-sex spaces, such as changing rooms, homeless shelters, swimming areas and medical or counseling services provided only to women.

The ruling means that a transgender person with a certificate that recognizes them as female should not be considered a woman for equality purposes.

The ruling brings some clarity in the U.K. to a contentious issue that has polarized politics in some other countries, particularly the U.S. Republican-controlled states over the last four years have been banning gender-affirming care for minors, barring transgender women and girls from sports competitions that align with their gender and restricting which public bathrooms transgender people can use.

Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump has signed orders to define the sexes as only male and female and has tried to kick transgender service members out of the military, block federal spending on gender-affirming car e for those under 19 and block their sports participation nationally. His efforts are being challenged in court.

Justice Patrick Hodge said the British ruling “does not remove protection from trans people,” who are still protected from discrimination under U.K. law.

The case stems from a 2018 law passed by the Scottish Parliament saying 50% of the membership of the boards of Scottish public bodies should be women. Transgender women with gender recognition certificates were to be included in meeting the quota.

“Interpreting ‘sex’ as certificated sex would cut across the definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ ... and, thus, the protected characteristic of sex in an incoherent way,” Hodge said. “It would create heterogeneous groupings.”

The campaign group Scottish Trans said it was “shocked and disappointed” by the ruling, saying it would undermine legal protections for transgender people enshrined in the 2004 Gender Recognition Act.

Maggie Chapman, a Green Party lawmaker in the Scottish Parliament, said the ruling was “deeply concerning” for human rights and "a huge blow to some of the most marginalized people in our society.”

“Trans people have been cynically targeted and demonized by politicians and large parts of the media for far too long,” she said. “This has contributed to attacks on longstanding rights and attempts to erase their existence altogether.”

Groups that had challenged the Scottish government uncorked a bottle of champagne outside the court and sang, “women’s rights are human rights.”

“The court has given us the right answer: the protected characteristic of sex — male and female — refers to reality, not to paperwork," said Maya Forstater of the group Sex Matters. In 2022, an employment tribunal ruled that she had been the victim of discrimination when she lost out on a job after posting gender-critical views online.

The British government welcomed the ruling, saying it would provide clarity and confidence for women.

“Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government,” it said.

Scotland’s semi-autonomous government said it accepted the judgment.

“We will now engage on the implications of the ruling,” First Minister John Swinney posted on X. “Protecting the rights of all will underpin our actions.”

For Women Scotland had argued that the Scottish officials' redefinition of woman went beyond Parliament’s powers. But Scottish officials then issued new guidance stating that the definition of woman included someone with a gender recognition certificate.

FWS successfully sought to overturn that.

“Not tying the definition of sex to its ordinary meaning means that public boards could conceivably comprise of 50% men and 50% men with certificates, yet still lawfully meet the targets for female representation,” the group’s director Trina Budge said previously.

The challenge was rejected by a court in 2022, but the group was granted permission last year to take its case to the Supreme Court.

Aidan O’Neill, a lawyer for FWS, told the Supreme Court judges — three men and two women — that under the Equality Act “sex” should refer to biological sex as understood “in ordinary, everyday language.”

“Our position is your sex, whether you are a man or a woman or a girl or a boy, is determined from conception in utero, even before one’s birth, by one’s body,” he said. “It is an expression of one’s bodily reality. It is an immutable biological state.”

The women’s rights group counted among its supporters author J.K. Rowling, who reportedly donated tens of thousands of pounds to back its work. The “Harry Potter” writer has been vocal in arguing that the rights for trans women should not come at the expense of those who are born biologically female.

Rowling said she was “so proud” of the “extraordinary, tenacious” For Women Scotland campaigners who took the case on a years-long battle through the courts.

Rowling wrote on X that “in winning, they’ve protected the rights of women and girls across the U.K.”

Opponents, including Amnesty International, said excluding transgender people from sex discrimination protections conflicted with human rights laws.

Amnesty submitted a brief in court saying it was concerned about the deterioration of the rights for trans people in the U.K. and abroad.

“A blanket policy of barring trans women from single-sex services is not a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate aim,” the human rights group said.

Kwiyeon Ha contributed to this story.