Gun sales are slumping across the country, but one state is bucking that trend: Colorado.

Gun-related National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) checks were down by 3.4 percent year-over-year across the country in April, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). Over the same period, however, detailed FBI records show they were up by 15.3 percent in the Centennial State. Despite ranking 21st by population size, Colorado also managed to crack NSSF’s top five in gun sales during the month.

Of course, the reason why isn’t likely to lift spirits in the gun industry. The surge in sales corresponds with Governor Jared Polis (D.) signing a sweeping new permit-to-purchase law.

The “Semiautomatic Firearms & Rapid-Fire Devices” bill criminalizes the manufacture, distribution, transfer, and purchase of any semi-automatic rifle, shotgun, or “gas-operated” handgun that accepts a detachable magazine. But it also includes an exception for those who undergo an extensive training and permitting process. It will add significant time and cost to the process of buying many of the most popular firearms for the average state resident.

“This legislation builds on our commitment to improve public safety, reduce gun violence, uphold our freedom,” Polis said of the law in a statement.

Gun-rights activists disagreed. They argue the new restrictions violate the Second Amendment and have vowed to sue.

“We are resolute in our response,” Ray Elliott, Colorado State Shooting Association president, said. “The Colorado State Shooting Association is actively exploring every legal option to challenge this unconstitutional law. Our legal team is preparing to contest Senate Bill 3, and we are committed to pursuing justice through every available avenue.”

In addition to the legal uncertainty surrounding the law, there are still many practical questions Colorado officials will have to answer in the coming months. The permitting process and even the specific guns the state will apply the permitting requirement to haven’t been determined yet. The law’s full provisions won’t go into effect until August of next year.

Colorado gun owners seem to be taking that time to stock up. While national NICS numbers have fallen all year, Colorado’s have been ramping up. January saw a modest five percent year-over-year increase, but the gap between Colorado gun-related checks and the rest of the country has only widened since then. February saw 12.7 percent growth. March experienced a 42.3 percent jump as the details of the proposal, which started as a total sales ban, came into focus.

Combining the handgun, long gun, and “other” categories in the NICS report for April 2025 indicates the FBI conducted 43,389 checks during that month. Outside of March 2025, that means April saw the most sales-related NICS checks going all the way back to 2023.

Meanwhile, the number of sales-related NICS checks in March 2025 was all the way up at 55,374. That makes it the best month Colorado has seen in a half-decade. It is the most since March 2020, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. That month saw the most NICS checks of any month in history.

The impact of Colorado’s permit-to-purchase law on stoking gun demand is apparent.

Whether it will motivate Coloradians to turn out at the polls against Polis and his party the way they have at their local gun stores isn’t apparent. Democrats faced a huge grassroots backlash after they passed a magazine ban in 2013. Opponents managed to successfully recall a state senator for the first time in history as a result.

But Colorado’s politics have continued to shift left nonetheless, including its gun politics. Democrats have more than recovered from the recall and have a tighter grip on the levers of state power. They’ve even framed the permit-to-purchase law as a kind of extension of that initial magazine ban, suggesting they don’t expect a similar backlash this time around. Republicans and gun-rights activists will be counting on that backlash to show up again.