Colorado lawmakers will hold a conference committee — a panel composed of House and Senate members — to try and resolve differences over a bill that seeks to penalize gun owners who leave their firearms unattended in a vehicle unless it is securely stored in a container and out of view.

The matter of disagreement between House and Senate members is an amendment — proposed by Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco — that would add language to House Bill 1348 to classify the theft of firearms valued at less than $2,000 as a Class 1 misdemeanor.

Class 1 misdemeanors entail a penalty of up to 364 days in jail or a fine of up to $1,000.

The language in the amendment closely mirrors that of House Bill 1162, which earlier died in the House Judiciary Committee. That bill aimed to classify the theft of a firearm valued at less than $1,000 as a Class 2 misdemeanor. 

Under the underlying bill, the “unsafe storage” of a handgun is a civil infraction that carries a maximum fine of $500.

In the Senate, Roberts acknowledged that the policy proposed in HB 1348 “makes sense at the theoretical level,” but he expressed worries that it would potentially punish crime victims. 

“I have a conceptual issue with this bill in that the bill seeks to impose a civil infraction on those who are the victims of crime,” he said. “We have a situation in Colorado, if this bill is passed, where somebody who has their car broken into and has an item of personal property taken from them could be punished more severely than the person who breaks into the car and steals the firearm.”

The Senate’s bill’s sponsors support the amendment and forwarded the amended measure to other chamber for concurrence. However, House sponsors are less receptive, accusing the Senate of seeking “revenge” for the legislation that died in committee by incorporating its language into HB 1348.

sponsor Rep. Lorena Garcia, D-Denver, argued that the amendment did not fit under HB 1348’s title because the bill is about the storage of firearms in vehicles — not theft. She suggested that the amendment’s introduction was an attempt at “revenge” on the Senate’s behalf, a statement that drew a reprimand from House Speaker Julie McCluskie. Garcia contended that she was quoting a newspaper in her insinuation, though it is not unclear which specific article she was referencing. 

Rep. Mike Weissman, D-Aurora, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, where the bill was initially heard, said firearm theft was never a topic of discussion during the bill’s committee hearing and agreed that it did not align with the bill’s title. 

“I am calling foul on what happened in the Senate,” Weissman said. “What the Senate did was essentially engraft another bill into this bill in a way that is way broader than the title, way broader than the conversation ever was in Judiciary Committee.”

House Bill 1162 and the amendment in question do nothing to get guns off the streets and would would not make communities safer, argued Rep. Javier Mabrey, D-Denver.

“All this would have done is get young people more entangled in the criminal justice system. After 50 years of the United States locking up more people than any other country on Earth, I believe we should know better. Our voters understand that what we’re doing — over-criminalizing people — is not working,” he said. 

Assistant Majority Leader Rep. Jennifer Bacon, D-Denver, voiced worries about the potential precedent of incorporating a dead bill into another measure. 

“If that’s something that we’re gonna approve here, are we gonna do that all the time?” she asked. “If there’s a bill that I have that didn’t pass, can I just put it in yours? Because that’s kind of what happened here. If we’re opening that door, I’ve got a lot of amendments for a lot of peoples’ bills.”

Republicans and moderate Democrats argued that the amendment is relevant to the bill’s title, as a significant number of of stolen firearms are stolen from vehicles. 

Rep. Ryan Armagost, R-Berthoud, who sponsored HB 1162 and emphasized that he was not “in cahoots” with Roberts in bringing forth the amendment, maintained that it is, in fact, relevant to HB 1348. 

“When you have a safe or secure storage of a firearm in a vehicle in a box, that box is still able to be stolen with the firearm inside,” he argued. 

The amendment passed through the Senate without any objections that it didn’t fit under the bill’s title, noted Rep. Matt Soper, R-Delta. 

Armagost’s co-sponsor on HB 1162, Rep. Marc Snyder, D-Colorado Springs, argued that advocacy groups, such as Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety, have stated that the No. 1 way to curb firearm-related crime is by eliminating the theft of illegal firearms.

He contended that bolstering the penalty for such theft would act as a deterrent for potential criminals.

“We have an opportunity to make some positive changes here in reducing gun violence in Colorado,” he said.

His colleague, Rep. Shannon Bird, D-Westminster, agreed and argued for concurrence with the Senate amendment.

“Anything that we can do to prevent additional commission of violent crimes is a good thing, and the laws that we pass regulating guns should be laws that are effective to keeping us safer and making sure that we are doing everything we can to prevent those precedents to violent crimes is a good thing for public safety,” she said. 

The House ultimately voted not to concur with the Senate Amendment on a vote of 34-27. All Republicans and 11 Democrats voted in favor of concurrence.

It’s unclear when the conference committee will occur. It will be chaired by the bill’s sponsors and Rep. Armagost in the House. The committee chairs from the Senate are uncertain, as two Democrats and one Republican are required to sit on the committee, but the bill’s sponsors and the amendment sponsor are all Democrats.