The city of Boulder has abandoned its appeal of a state District Court ruling that overturned anti-gun ordinances the city enacted in 2018.

The ordinances banned the sale, transfer and possession of semi-automatic sporting rifles, along with magazines larger than 10 rounds and “multi-burst trigger activators.”

Gun owners filed two lawsuits, one in state court and another in federal court, against the city after the ban took effect.

In March, state District Judge Andrew Hartman threw out the ordinances as a violation of Colorado’s firearms regulation preemption law passed in 2003.

“These provisions are invalid, and enforcement of them is enjoined,” Hartman said. “The Court has determined that only Colorado state (or federal) law can prohibit the possession, sale and transfer of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.”

Boulder appealed that decision to the Colorado Court of Appeals in May. The federal lawsuit was stayed pending resolution of the state issues.

The state lawsuit was filed by the Colorado State Shooting Association, Boulder firearms retailer Gunsport of Colorado and two Boulder residents.

After the ordinances were overturned, the General Assembly passed new laws throwing out Colorado’s existing preemption statute, which prevented cities, counties and towns from regulating firearms more strictly than state law.

“Two decades ago, I helped to stop these kind of abuses from gun-hating cities. And now we’re going to return to those days, probably with a vengeance,” said Jon Caldera, a plaintiff in the federal lawsuit and president of the Independence Institute, a Denver-based think tank.

“It’s important to understand what this is. This is not about guns. It’s about gun owners. It’s about intolerant towns like Boulder, who don’t like people who are not like them, and they don’t want us in their cities,” Caldera continued. “So they’re going to make their cities very inhospitable to people (who) have certain beliefs. I’m sure that the people who hate gun owners on city council will again turn me into a criminal sometime in the near future.”

Sarah Huntley, a spokeswoman for the city of Boulder, said: “We requested the dismissal because the state law in question has since been changed. The city will be updating its local ordinance in recognition of the change at the state level.”

How the new state law will play out in other local jurisdictions has yet to be seen, said Cody Wisniewski, director of the Center to Keep and Bear Arms at the Mountain States Legal Foundation in Lakewood.

“It violates Supreme Court precedent if the cities are trying to ban entire categories of firearms,” Wisniewski said. “Even if they are home-rule municipalities, home rule does not exempt cities from the Colorado Constitution or the federal Constitution.”

The new state law also allows local governments to regulate or ban ammunition, parts and accessories for firearms and criminalizes their possession.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that indiscriminate bans on entire classes of firearms are unconstitutional. And the Colorado Constitution says, “The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called in question.”

“The text of the Colorado Constitution is clearly a strong protection against state infringement,” said David Kopel, research director at the Independence Institute and author of the textbook Colorado Constitutional Law and History.

“Boulder can certainly try to pass a law. However, as we’ve maintained since day one in in federal court, that law is federally unconstitutional,” Wisniewski said. “Any police power can be exercised by the state, but that power can’t overcome individual’s rights to defend themselves, to defend their lives, to defend their families, to defend their property. Those are inherent in us as human beings … and that power can’t overcome and can’t supplant the people’s rights.”

Wisniewski said the foundation would continue to litigate as necessary.

“We’ll continue to monitor, we’ll continue to watch as cities consider these kinds of ordinances and these kinds of bans, and where appropriate we’ll step in to help Coloradans defend their rights in court,” he said.