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This state, one of hunters and sport-shooters, has endured two of the most horrific mass shootings in American history, and this year for the first time in more than a decade it could pass major gun-control legislation.

Gun-control advocates say it is a moment forged in part by a massacre inside a suburban Denver movie theater that left 12 people dead. But it is also one created by demographics, of population shifts that have nudged the political center left while transforming traditionally rural, conservative swaths of the West.

"We've had it with mass shootings," said Beth McCann, a Democratic state representative. "People just don't want to hear about another massacre. This is enough."

To lawmakers and advocates on both sides of the debate, Colorado is becoming a national test case for what kind of gun regulations – if any – can gather support from lawmakers, law enforcement officials and a public whose relationship with guns has been forged by tradition as much as tragedy.

This is a place where even the horrors of the 1999 attack at Columbine High School in suburban Denver only temporarily shifted the debate on guns. In 2000, Colorado voters passed new restrictions on purchases made at gun shows, but a few years later, the Legislature relaxed gun laws by making it easier for people to carry concealed weapons and also limited towns and cities from passing strict gun laws.

Gun ownership here crosses generations and political divisions. Liberal Denver lawyers own handguns, and the Democratic governor takes his son to hunting safety classes. A popular family shooting range sits in the center of Cherry Creek State Park, drawing some sport-shooters who voted for President Obama, others who insist he is a communist.

As state legislators across the country reconvene, heavily Democratic states like New York, New Jersey and California are considering proposals to restrict assault weapons and ammunition that are far more aggressive than anything likely to pass in Colorado, even with Democrats now in control of the Statehouse.

Gov. John W. Hickenlooper, a first-term Democrat, has called for universal background checks of private, individual gun sales, in addition to the checks now required at gun shows and at retail establishments. But in an interview, Mr. Hickenlooper said he was unsure about proposals from Democratic lawmakers to ban high-capacity ammunition magazines.

"Even saying that puts some people into a frenzy," Mr. Hickenlooper said. "People in the West have a very strong, deeply anchored belief in people's right to bear arms."

That division came into sharp relief when Mr. Hickenlooper called for universal background checks in his State of the State address on Thursday. Democrats in one half of the chamber leapt to their feet and applauded while members of the Republican minority sat in stony silence.

Democratic lawmakers have not formally introduced their gun-control measures, but have said they are writing bills that would create background checks for private, person-to-person sales and restrict high-capacity magazines like those used by the gunman in the Aurora theater.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a national gun-control organization, is entering the fray here, and has hired a Denver lobbying firm to support new gun-control laws.

State Senator Greg Brophy, a Republican, said the attention from outside groups would make Colorado "ground zero for gun control in the United States."

Republican supporters of gun rights have bristled at the push for tighter gun laws. One of the first bills introduced in the Legislature would allow teachers with concealed-weapons permits to carry guns inside their classrooms (with a school district's permission). Mr. Brophy was one who recoiled at the universal background checks, saying that the only way to enforce such a system would be to require all gun owners to register their firearms.