After a record-breaking 2025 for gun violence prevention legislation, Colorado got a shout-out from GIFFORDS in the group’s year-end review.
“Some states like Colorado enacted innovative new laws to hold the gun industry accountable for its role in America’s gun violence epidemic, as well as measures to disarm abusers and ban devices that convert guns into machine gun–like weapons,” the group said in its Gun Law Trendwatch: 2025 in Review. “Colorado was… a true trendsetter in 2025. Among other new laws, the state enacted an innovative industry accountability measure (SB 158) that requires the state to review dealers’ safety and compliance records—including trace data, theft/loss incidents, inspection results, and anti-trafficking policies—before contracting with them.”
Nationally, the group said, In 2025, 33 states passed 89 strong bills, bringing the total number of significant gun safety laws passed since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 to more than 820.
Despite these gun safety successes, though, some states continue to fail to protect their constituents from gun violence. Iowa, for example, enacted a law lowering its minimum age for the possession of a handgun to 18. Montana passed a law prohibiting local governments from enacting red flag ordinances, or enforcing an extreme risk protection order against a Montana resident. Texas passed a similar law, but took it one step further and made it a felony offense to serve or enforce—or attempt to serve or enforce—an extreme risk protection order against a person in the state. This means that law enforcement officers in Texas and Montana, despite knowing that a judge in another state has determined a person is a risk to themself or someone else and should not have access to firearms, cannot remove firearms from that person.
Still, the group says, the national trend at statehouses is toward stronger gun-safety laws, rather than against them.