What a difference a digit can make.
While the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals remains incredibly hostile to the Second Amendment, despite the work of judges like Lawrence Van Dyke, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals is a very different story. The appellate court handed gun owners a win on Thursday in a lawsuit challenging Colorado's ban on unserialized firearm frames by rejecting a district court's rationale in denying the plaintiffs' motion for an injunction.
National Association for Gun Rights and Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, along with three individual plaintiffs, sued Gov. Jared Polis after he signed a bill into law outlawing the possession, purchase, sale, transfer, and transportation of unserialized firearms, firearm frames or receivers, and firearm parts kits, as well as prohibiting the manufacture of frames and receivers.
The district court ruled that one of the plaintiffs had standing to pursue injunctive relief based on his continued possession of unserialized firearm parts kits, but denied the plaintiffs' challenge to the ban on purchasing those kits as well as the challenge the manufacturing prohibition; ruling that the challenge to the purchase prohibition was not "ripe" thanks to overlapping federal regulations, and that plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the manufacturing prohibition because it did not cover their "desired conduct."
The Tenth Circuit agreed with the district court decision regarding the challenge to the manufacturing ban, while leaving open the possibility that others could viably challenge that law under particular circumstances.
The Tenth Circuit is basically reading the statute to exclude what the Plaintiffs sued over, saying the law only bans "manufacturing" but not "completing, assembling, or converting" a finished frame.
— Kostas Moros (@MorosKostas) April 23, 2026
This is plainly not what the Colorado legislature intended when they passed… https://t.co/COyPmTCwOZ pic.twitter.com/e0obdhUcDo
Moros has a point about the way the panel interprets that portion of the statute. If the legislature banned the possession of unserialized gun parts, DIY gun kits, and unserialized firearms as well as "manufacturing" them, it stands to reason that Democrats were also making it illegal to complete or convert an unfinished frame into a finished (and unserialized) frame. That's frustrating, but it's one of the few discordant notes in what is otherwise a pretty solid opinion.
The appellate court disagreed, for instance, with the district court's presumption that the challenge to the purchase prohibition wasn't "ripe" because of an ATF rule prohibiting "buy, build, and shoot" kits that was subject to a second legal challenge. Instead, the appellate court noted that the Colorado law is different enough from the ATF's rule that it can be challenged by the plaintiffs, even after the rule was upheld by the Supreme Court.
The Tenth Circuit panel then turned to the district court's denial of injunctive relief regarding the prohibition on possessing unserialized firearms, because it determined that Colorado’s law prohibiting the possession of unserialized firearm parts kits and privately manufactured firearms "did not implicate the plain text of the Second Amendment."
We cannot agree with the district court that the possession prohibition is purely a“condition or qualification on the commercial sale of firearms.” Although the district court characterized the Colorado statute as “pertain[ing] to prior purchases,” the at-issue provisions regulate unserialized frame and firearm possession—no matter how a person previously acquired the frame or firearm. As we recently explained, a regulation is not a condition or qualification on the commercial sale of firearms if the regulation “ha[s] nothing to do with the [conduct’s] commercial nature.”
Although Plaintiff Richardson purchased his firearm parts kit from a commercial seller,he would risk violating C.R.S. § 18-12-111.5(1)(a) even if he had received this firearm parts kit as a gift from a friend. This provision has nothing to do with the commercial nature of the prior transaction. Because a regulation of firearm possession is not a condition or qualification on the commercial sale of firearms, the district court abused its discretion in denying Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction on this basis.
This is a common sense position, but it just goes to show you how far some judges are willing to go in ignoring or rewriting the Supreme Court's Second Amendment jurisprudence in order to uphold gun control laws. We've seen some judges argue, for instance, that waiting periods are constitutionally sound because the right to keep and bear arms doesn't encompass the right to acquire them. In this case, the district court judge ruled that a ban on possessing unserialized gun parts is okay because possession is just another aspect of acquisition, and the acquisition of arms falls under the commercial sales of firearms, which is also not protected or covered by the Second Amendment.
The Tenth Circuit panel sent the case back to the district court for a do-over, and we'll see if the judge continues to obfuscate the issues the second time around. Even if they do, the fact that the appellate panel is treating the Second Amendment as a first-class right is a very good sign, and an ill omen for the gun prohibitionists in Colorado.
