Numerous shootings perpetrated by youths at schools, churches and other typically peaceful public venues have spurred a renewed debate over federal and state gun laws this past year.

In Colorado, gun-control advocates have focused their efforts on tightening gun-show laws, which they say contain several "loopholes."

One gun-control group, SAFE Colorado, has written one of the most controversial amendments on the 2000 ballot — Amendment 22. This amendment would require unlicensed gun-show vendors to conduct a background check on prospective gun buyers and obtain approval from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation before the sale is completed. The only firearms sales exempt from a background check would be antique and curio firearms.

Currently, the Brady law requires only federally licensed dealers to conduct background checks at gun shows. But if Amendment 22 passes, Colorado gun-show promoters would have to arrange for a licensed dealer to be available at each show to conduct mandatory background checks for unlicensed gun owners at gun shows. In return for this service, the amendment stipulates that a licensed gun dealer may charge a fee of up to $10.

Also anyone with a restraining order against him, or anyone who has been convicted of domestic violence, cannot legally purchase a firearm. The Insta Check system allows dealers to tap into a database and test potential gun buyers against these requirements.

L.E. Greenwald, past president of the Colorado Gun Collectors Association, estimated that 25 gun shows are hosted per year in the state. Greenwald said the shows are usually well-attended, sometimes attracting up to 10,000 people over a three-day weekend.

Opponents of the measure charge that the definitions of "gun show" and "gun-show vendor" included in the amendment are too restrictive and could infringe on protected Constitutional rights.

"I don’t believe this amendment is going to do a good job of keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, I think it’s just one more step that imposes a hardship on the honest, law-abiding gun owners," said Greenwald.

Tom Mauser, SAFE Colorado’s director of political affairs, said he is confident that this amendment would keep more guns out of criminals’ hands. "Right now it’s just so easy for a criminal to walk into a gun show, no questions asked, and buy a gun," he explained by phone from Denver.

From August 1999 through August 2000, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation denied 9,168 gun purchases to prospective gun purchasers. Of the 159,915 background checks run during that period, the amount of denials accounted for 5.73 percent, and 2,593 of them have been appealed.

Russ Scott, spokesman for the opposing lobbyist group, Citizens for Responsible Lawmaking, said their group objects to the restrictive definitions.

"Once you understand the definition that’s in the amendment, you have to throw out what people think of as a gun show," said Russ Scott. "If three private individuals get together and talk and they can’t legally do that without a federally licensed dealer present, than that’s a violation of their federally protected rights."

The measure defines a gun show as "the entire premises provided for an event or function, including but not limited to parking areas for the event or function, that is sponsored to facilitate, in whole or in part, the purchase, sale, offer for sale, or collection of firearms at which: (a) twenty-five or more firearms are offered or exhibited for sale, transfer, or exchange; or (b) not less than three gun-show vendors exhibit, sell, offer for sale, transfer, or exchange firearms."

"My viewpoint is that this amendment probably violates the First, Second, Fourth, and Fifth amendments of the constitution," said Scott.

Mauser said the amendment was not meant to restrict hunters from exchanging firearms while hunting, or preventing a private citizen from selling a gun.

"A gun show is defined as an event or function. I don’t think that three people getting together would constitute an event or function," said Mauser. He also explained that "exchanging guns" would mean exchanging possession.

Mauser and spokeswoman Cynthia Stone said that limiting a gun show to three or more vendors, or 25 firearms, was a way of preventing another loophole in the law.

"If you start the buying process in the gun show and then try to go outside — wink, wink — and finish the deal, that doesn’t work. Because we didn’t want people meeting in gun shows, and then because they didn’t want to go through a background check, doing it elsewhere," said Stone.

Dale Foote, owner of Arrowhead Pawn Shop in Cortez, is a federally licensed dealer who has sold guns at gun shows. He said the definition of a vendor is too restrictive.

The amendment defines a vendor as, "any person who exhibits, sells, offers for sale, transfers, or exchanges, any firearm at a gun show, regardless of whether the person aranges with a gun show promoter for a fixed location from which to exhibit, sell, offer for sale, transfer or exchange any firearm."

Foote also said that very few licensed dealers would be willing to conduct background checks that have taken him up to several hours for $10 per check.

"I certainly am not going to sit on the phone for $5 an hour to make a sale for someone else," he said. "I’ve got better things to do with my time."

Opponents also say the measure would be too costly for the state legislature to implement by March 31, 2001.

Mauser said the amendment would cost taxpayers between $357,383 and $494,211 for the first year. He said the measure would likely require an additional 10 to 15 Colorado Bureau of Investigation employees, new leased space, and computer and capital expenses. In addition there may be a cost for a web-based computer interface estimated at $578,060.

Because the measure would take effect in the middle of the fiscal year the legislature would either have to pass an emergency appropriation to implement it or move funding from another program.

SAFE Colorado wrote the amendment after similar legislation died in the Colorado legislature during the spring session. The lobbyist group was founded shortly after the April 1999 Columbine High School shootings in Littleton that resulted in 13 deaths.

The guns used in the crime were purchased for the teenagers by a friend at a Denver gun show. In January 2000, Tom Mauser, the father of one of the Columbine victims, Daniel Mauser, took a leave of absence to direct SAFE Colorado’s political affairs.