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Boulder City Council votes to ban assault-style weapons

The city council in Boulder, Colo., has unanimously voted to ban assault-style weapons, large-capacity ammunition magazines and bump stocks.

The ban will only apply to new purchases of assault-style weapons, CBS News reported, and members of law enforcement, government officers and military personnel will be exempted.

Current owners will be grandfathered in and allowed to keep the guns they already have, according to the network. Residents who already own assault-style weapons will have until the end of the year to receive a certificate of ownership, it added.

{mosads} Owners of the high-capacity magazines and bump stocks — devices used to make semi-automatic guns fire at a high rate of speed — will have until July 15 to dispose of the accessories or sell them. 

“My hope is that we will see more bans at the state level and one day at the federal level so these weapons will no longer be available,” Boulder Councilman Aaron Brockett said during the vote on Tuesday.

A nonprofit group Mountain States Legal Foundation has already threatened legal action, according to the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder.

Boulder is the latest city to take up an assault-style weapons ban following the push for gun control following the deadly Feb. 14 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla.

Officials in the Chicago suburb of Deerfield, Ill., passed a similar ban in April.