Colorado SB25-003 Permit Law Survives Injunction Bid

Last updated November 2026 · By Nick Hall, who tracks Colorado gun law and read all 35 pages of the Del Toro v. Polis order

Quick take: A federal judge refused on November 4 to block the permit-to-purchase rules in Colorado’s SB25-003, so you still need a sheriff’s eligibility card and a safety course before buying a covered semiauto. It’s a preliminary ruling, not the end of the case, but the state won this round.

• Ruling: Judge William J. Martínez denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction against the SB25-003 permit-to-purchase scheme on November 4, 2026.
• Court: The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, in Del Toro v. Polis, case 1:25-cv-02725.
• Why it matters: The judge said the plaintiffs had not shown the covered semiautos are protected “arms,” and he separately treated the permit as a presumptively lawful shall-issue system.
• What’s next: The case moves on toward summary judgment, and no notice of appeal was on the docket as of its November 4 update.

Most fights over Colorado’s semiauto law get argued as fights over a ban. This ruling barely needed the word. The judge handed the state two separate wins, and only one of them hangs on the AR-15 case the Supreme Court hears on December 2. We pulled the order and the docket so you don’t have to.

Table of Contents

What the Del Toro v. Polis Order Actually Decided

The plaintiffs are five Colorado gun owners, Israel Del Toro, Luke Sorensen, Nathanael Skiver, Jason Reeves and Garrett Flicker, plus the Colorado State Shooting Association, which the order describes as the NRA’s official state association. They sued Governor Jared Polis, Attorney General Philip Weiser, Fourth Judicial District Attorney Michael J. Allen and Laura Clellan, acting director of Colorado Parks and Wildlife, all in their official capacities.

The suit was filed on September 2, 2025. On August 11, 2026, ten days after the permit rules took effect, the plaintiffs asked for a preliminary injunction aimed only at Sections Two and Three of SB25-003, codified at C.R.S. §§ 18-12-116 and 33-9-115. The rapid-fire device ban in the same act was not part of the motion.

Judge William J. Martínez, a senior district judge, denied it in a 35-page order dated November 4, 2026. He also denied as moot the plaintiffs’ request for a hearing on the motion.

And that is all the order does. It doesn’t uphold SB25-003 for good, and it doesn’t touch the rapid-fire device ban. It says the plaintiffs aren’t likely enough to win to justify freezing the permit rules while the case runs.

What SB25-003 Asks of a Colorado Buyer Right Now

Since August 1, 2026, Section Two has made it unlawful to sell or buy a “specified semiautomatic firearm” unless the buyer has finished the training. The covered guns are semiauto rifles and shotguns with detachable magazines and “gas-operated” semiauto handguns with detachable magazines. Rimfire guns in .22 or smaller, bolt, pump and lever actions, and certain recoil-operated handguns are carved out.

Step one is a course eligibility card from your county sheriff: an application, a government ID, a third-party background check and a non-refundable fee. The card is good for five years. Step two is one of three training paths, built from hunter education, a basic course of at least four hours, or an extended course of at least 12 hours over two days, all taught in person by a sheriff-verified instructor. Each course ends in an exam, and the basic course needs a score of at least 90%.

The sheriff “shall” issue the card to an applicant who supplies the paperwork and fee, and “shall” deny someone who can’t lawfully have a gun. There is one discretionary door: a sheriff “may” deny on a “reasonable belief” that documented past behavior makes the applicant a danger. A denial can go to court, and on that ground the sheriff has to prove it by clear and convincing evidence.

The state’s own numbers did a lot of work in the order. As of September 1, 2026, sheriffs had received 3,574 applications and 39 county sheriffs had issued 1,125 cards, with an average of 10.9 days from application to card. Of the 502 people who had finished a safety course, none had failed the exam.

Costs got the same treatment. Declarants reported $30 background checks, one paid $35, and another paid a $52 record-system fee to Parks and Wildlife, while one estimated close to $600 all in. The judge said he “easily rejects the contention” that compliant buyers had paid exorbitant fees. If you want the rest of the rulebook in one place, Colorado’s gun laws stack this on top of the 15-round magazine cap and the age 21 rule for rifle and shotgun ammo.

The Bruen Step One Holding Behind the SB25-003 Ruling

In the Tenth Circuit, Bruen’s first step asks three things: whether the challenger is one of “the people,” whether the item is an arm in common use today for self-defense, and whether the conduct is covered. The judge gave the plaintiffs the first and third, citing the Tenth Circuit’s line that “the right to bear arms requires a right to acquire arms.”

The middle question sank them. “In any case, Plaintiffs have not shown that law-abiding citizens commonly use SSFs today for self-defense,” the order says. The judge also read common use as a floor, not a pass: “if a gun is not in common use, then it is not protected by the Second Amendment; but the reverse is not also true.”

The plaintiffs had pointed to the AR-15 as “the most popular rifle” in America, quoting the Supreme Court’s 2025 Smith & Wesson decision, and to a definition they say reaches more than 800 models. The judge credited the state’s experts instead, including historian Robert J. Spitzer and Lucy P. Allen, who found it “extremely rare” for someone to fire more than 10 to 15 rounds in self-defense.

Here’s my read. Telling owners of what the plaintiffs call the most popular rifle in America that it hasn’t been shown to be an “arm” is a holding on borrowed time, and the order more or less says so itself: “it appears that circuits are split on this question, and that the Supreme Court is likely to resolve the question this term.”

The case it cites is Viramontes v. Cook County (No. 25-238), which the Court agreed to hear on June 30, 2026, consolidated with Connecticut’s Grant v. Higgins, and set for argument on Wednesday, December 2, 2026. Eighteen states and DC have already filed a brief backing the bans in that case.

The Shall-Issue Backstop That Doesn’t Need the AR-15 Answer

Here’s the kicker. The judge wrote that even if the guns counted as protected arms, the plaintiffs would still have to beat the presumption that shall-issue licensing is lawful, which comes from footnote 9 of Bruen and the Tenth Circuit’s 2024 RMGO decision. They didn’t.

The plaintiffs called the scheme may-issue in disguise, pointing at the “reasonable belief” clause and the 90% exam. The judge compared the clause to the Connecticut “suitable person” standard Bruen itself treated as operating like shall-issue, and concluded that “discretion under SB25-003 is the exception, not the rule.”

The “unbridled discretion” argument rested on declarations from the Teller County and Custer County sheriffs describing thin guidance. That wasn’t enough: “Plaintiffs identify no declaration describing a named applicant who was denied an eligibility card because a sheriff applied an arbitrary or inconsistent standard.” The early rollout problems, in the judge’s words, were “ordinary administrative challenges that may accompany the initial implementation of a new regulatory program in the very first days of its existence.”

The claims about disabled and non-English-speaking buyers didn’t get a merits answer at all, because the judge found they weren’t pleaded in the amended complaint. Having lost at step one, the plaintiffs never got the court to the history-and-tradition question at step two.

So the math looks like this: if the Supreme Court rules for the challengers in Viramontes and says common semiautos are protected arms, the first holding in this order is in real trouble, but the shall-issue holding was written to stand on its own, and that one is about permits and sheriffs rather than which rifles count. That second half is the one the challengers still have to crack.

What Happens Next in Del Toro v. Polis

A denial like this can be appealed right away. 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) gives the courts of appeals jurisdiction over orders “refusing or dissolving injunctions,” which here means the Tenth Circuit. On the public docket, last updated November 4, the order is the newest entry and no notice of appeal had been filed.

The case keeps moving regardless. The state defendants’ motion to dismiss is still pending, and the judge said he will rule on it, and on the shooting association’s standing, in a separate order. Under the current schedule, discovery closes November 30, 2026, dispositive motions are due January 12, 2027, and the final pretrial conference is set for April 5, 2027.

For a buyer in Colorado, nothing changed on November 4. Card first. Course second. Then the gun.

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