After four long years of the Biden Administration making constant threats to ban “assault weapons” and shamelessly wielding executive agencies to infringe on the Second Amendment, millions of Americans are taking a sigh of relief with President Donald Trump back in office.

Already, he’s working to undo Biden-era infringements as part of his overall mission to Make America Great Again.

However, despite losing seats in the Legislature in 2024, Colorado Democrats have only increased their attacks against gun rights.

The state’s leftward sprint means Colorado gun owners don’t have the luxury of letting our guard down despite good news in Washington.

The silver lining is that legislative Democrats’ effort to pass Senate Bill 25-003, the Semi-Automatic Firearm Ban and Gun Owner Registry, exposes what the modern left has become.

Namely a group of ineffectual control freaks who get a kick out of telling everybody else what to do while making exceptions for themselves.

Let’s hope “libertarian” Gov. Jared Polis can see that.

In its original form, Senate Bill 3 would have barred any Coloradan access to most semi-automatic firearms that accept detachable magazines.

But Senate Democrats knew they had a problem in the fact that Polis, ever-mindful of his national political ambitions, pushed for the defeat of nearly identical measures in each of the last two legislative sessions.

Accordingly, in a poor excuse for moderation, Senate Democrats implemented a pricey licensing scheme, providing their well-to-do friends with exceptions and the Governor with an excuse to say “it isn’t ban.”

The new Senate Bill 3 will require a prospective gun owner to have sufficient disposable income to pay a to-be-determined sum in fees, the ability to take time off work to sift through a series of bureaucratic headaches, and a willingness to submit his or her name to a gun owner registry.

No doubt that’s a tall order for anybody living paycheck to paycheck and those who value their privacy.

People who will certainly have access to firearms under the “moderated” legislation include:

• Hollywood movie makers who want to use firearms as props while filming in Colorado, thanks to a carve-out Democrats added with an amendment.

•Polis, state legislators, and others of sufficient financial means and free time.

• Transplants bringing semi-auto firearms into the state when they move here.

Those who won’t?

•Survivors of domestic violence and stalking, thanks to Senate Democrats who rejected an amendment that would have created an exemption for such people.

• Working-class people too preoccupied with providing for their families to spend money and time they don’t have to buy their rights from the state.

• Anybody a local sheriff deems, in their subjective (or political) judgment, unworthy of bearing arms — since this bill also grants sheriffs that authority. (This is not about keeping guns away from felons, who are prohibited access by background checks at gun stores.)

This bill effectively bans firearms for those on the lower half of the socio-economic ladder, while allowing people who can afford the expensive permit-to-buy program to access common-use guns.

Perhaps Senate Democrats aren’t so anti-gun after all.

With exceptions to a gun ban made for themselves and their Hollywood friends, it’s clear they enjoy the security their firearms afford them.

They just want to keep guns away from us.

Polis will need to decide if he’s on board with that.

Kolby Zipperer is the vice president of the Colorado State Shooting Association (the official state association of the National Rifle Association). Learn more at CSSA.org.

Kolby Zipperer is the vice president of the Colorado State Shooting Association (the official state association of the NRA). Learn more at CSSA.org.