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Colorado Supreme Ct. upholds city AW ban

The Rocky Mtn News reports that the Colorado Supremes upheld a Denver ban on "assault weapons."

It's a rather technical "upheld" since the court split 3-3, meaning the lower court result survives, but an evenly split decision has no precedential value.

If the news report is correct, the suit was between the State and the city, and the lower court result upheld some of the regulations and struck down others. The legal core seems to have been conflict between pre-emption statutes and a city's "home rule" powers (I assume the latter are in the state Constitution; otherwise the later enactments would trump the earlier ones).

[UPDATE: I checked the opinion, and it gives little clue, just recites that Justice Eid did not take part, three judges were for affirmance and three for reversal, so lower court is upheld].

{Further update: I found a .pdf brief in the case on Steve Halbrook's webpage--look in righthand column under "Lawsuits." A quick read suggests that the Colo. pre-emption law had the same problem ours in Arizona used to have, before it was amended. The statute lays out the gun laws -- no concealed carry without a permit, etc., and then says no municipality may adopt laws inconsistent with this chapter. The city in an Arizona case successfully argued that more regulation isn't "inconsistent" with less regulation. If the state says you can't carry concealed w/o a permit, then the only thing "inconsistent" with that would be a city law saying you CAN carry concealed without a permit. Saying you can't carry openly, either, is not "inconsistent" because the state statute never expressly says you can carry openly. It just doesn't outlaw that. Yep, it's a word game, but good enough for the city to win here, and in Colorado to make it a 3-3.]