Citizen-led ballot initiatives have become a key way for voters in many states to push through new gun policies or strike existing ones. In recent years, Oregon voters approved a measure to require permits and safety training to buy a gun, and voters in Washington state passed universal background checks on gun sales, raised the minimum age to purchase semiautomatic rifles, and imposed a 10-day waiting period on such weapons.
When The Trace first surveyed the electoral landscape in January, over a dozen gun-related initiatives were vying for the 2024 ballot in four states. All of those initiatives failed.
A few more initiatives were submitted in the intervening months, but only one will actually go before voters this November.
We looked at the states where initiatives didn’t make it onto the ballot and found that they were stymied by understaffed signature-gathering efforts, party infighting, and unfavorable odds, among other hurdles. We delve into more details below.
Colorado: The only state with a gun-related initiative on the ballot
The only successful initiative this cycle wasn’t put forward by citizens, but by lawmakers.
In Colorado, certain increases to state revenue must go before voters after passing the state Legislature. Democratic Governor Jared Polis signed a measure in June that would impose a 6.5 percent tax on the manufacture and retail sale of guns and ammunition, to be paid by gunmakers and dealers. The measure needs a simple majority of voters to become law.
It is projected to bring in $39 million a year, to be earmarked for crime victim programs and mental health services. “We want a way to sustain these services,” Colorado State Senator Janet Buckner, a Democrat, said in arguing for the measure. “These are not small things — these are things that save lives.”
Gunmakers and dealers are already subject to a federal tax of 10 percent on handguns and 11 percent on long guns and ammunition. California is the only state with a separate tax on guns, enacted last year.
A separate Colorado initiative would have prevented law enforcement from denying marijuana users permits to carry concealed guns, but the sponsors failed to gather enough signatures by the August 5 deadline.
Gun reform will also be on the ballot in Memphis, Tennessee
Gun control initiatives are proposed at the local level, too. But in many states there are legal obstacles to local governments enforcing their own gun laws.
Earlier this year, Memphis City Council members proposed initiatives to reinstate a concealed carry permit requirement, ban semiautomatic rifles, and establish a red flag law to temporarily disarm people deemed a threat to themselves or others.
But those measures would conflict with state law. The Tennessee Legislature enacted permitless carry in 2021 and, more recently, passed a bill banning local governments from enforcing red flag laws. The state also has a preemption law that prohibits local governments from enacting gun regulations that are stricter than the state’s.
State GOP lawmakers threatened to withhold state funding if Memphis’s initiatives went on the ballot, and election officials initially decided to leave them off. But the City Council sued the election board, and last week, a judge ruled in the city’s favor.
Memphis leaders say they’re aware the laws might ultimately be revoked, but they hope the vote will send a message to Republican state lawmakers. “Maybe just maybe they will listen to thousands and thousands of residents who will tell them that gun reform for our community is a matter of life and death,” City Councilmember JB Smiley posted on X after the verdict.
The states where initiatives failed
Arizona
An initiative that would have allowed people with medical marijuana cards to buy and possess guns in Arizona fell short of the signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.
Another pro-gun measure in Arizona would have continued a trend of so-called firearm discrimination bills, which penalize companies, particularly banks, that refuse to do business with the gun industry. Over the past decade, a handful of red states — Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Montana, Texas, and Utah — have passed bills that bar state entities from contracting with companies that refuse to work with gun companies.
The Arizona ballot initiative, put forth by Republican lawmakers, was an attempt to circumvent Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs’s veto of a similar bill last year. However, the state’s legislative session ended before both chambers could vote to add the initiative to this November’s ballot.
Michigan
A pro-gun measure in Michigan would have overturned the state’s red flag law. The measure’s sponsors began circulating the petition after gaining approval of it in December, but they stopped gathering signatures in February.
Perhaps one of the reasons the gun rights measure failed to get any traction in Michigan is that last year, the state solidified itself as a gun reform stronghold when Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, signed a universal background check law, the red flag law, and gun restrictions for domestic abusers.
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Missouri
In January, 10 initiatives were vying for the ballot in Missouri, a deep-red Second Amendment stronghold. Several aimed to restore laws stripped away in recent decades, including concealed carry permit requirements and expanded background checks. Initiatives to establish a red flag law and a minimum firearm purchasing age of 18 also failed.
Sensible Missouri was seeking an initiative to reverse the state’s decade-old preemption statute to let cities — including St. Louis and Kansas City — enact their own gun laws. But the group announced in February that it was pivoting to the 2026 ballot, citing discouraging polling and competing gun-related constitutional amendments.
After the Kansas City Super Bowl victory parade shooting, which left one person dead and 22 others wounded, Democratic state lawmakers introduced a similar measure that used some of Sensible Missouri’s language, but it went nowhere.
The sole gun rights initiative, which sought to codify Missouri’s preemption of local gun laws in the state constitution and overrule gun regulations passed by local governments, also didn’t make the ballot.
Oklahoma
A measure pushed by Oklahoma’s GOP lawmakers would have created a state constitutional amendment prohibiting taxes on the purchase or transfer of firearms and ammunition, and expanded gun rights to include carrying for self-defense.
The National Rifle Association backed the amendment, but Gun Owners of America, which tacks further right, balked at a provision that gives the Legislature the authority to regulate the carrying of weapons if it serves “a compelling state interest.” The group said that clause “would actually undermine rather than support one’s right to bear arms.”
The measure stalled in the Legislature, disqualifying it from the ballot.
Oregon
A measure that sought to make Oregon the nation’s 30th permitless carry state by eliminating concealed carry licensing and training failed to get enough signatures.
One of the bill’s sponsors, a local Republican Party chair named Joel Pawloski, said in an episode of his podcast that he had difficulty recruiting and maintaining an all-volunteer staff of signature-gatherers. He also cited resistance from within his own party — not because of the measure’s long odds in the solidly blue state, but because of political infighting in the local GOP.
Washington
Three gun rights measures failed to qualify for the ballot in Washington state.
The first would have prohibited a state registry of gun owners, but the initiative failed to get the required number of signatures by the July 5 deadline.
Another failed measure aimed to bar the government from “restricting the purchase or possession of guns or other arms used for self-defense by law-abiding citizens.”
The third measure would have repealed the state’s 2023 ban on more than 50 models of semiautomatic rifles. Micheal Picon II, the measure’s sponsor, works at a delivery job and is not a party operative. He described to The Trace a shoestring effort that lacked publicity and manpower, which meant he couldn’t gather enough signatures. But he wants to try again in 2026.
Picon acknowledged the political realities of shopping a pro-gun measure in a state led by Democrats. “I’ve had folks ripping up petition sheets,” he said. Next time, he plans to generate publicity by spreading the word to gun shops. “That’s who this is really for,” he said. “A lot of these stores are owned by vets from the Army or the police force who feel like no one in Olympia [the state capitol] is looking out for them.”