A federal judge in Colorado on Wednesday dismissed part of a lawsuit filed against Gov. John Hickenlooper and the state challenging the legality of new gun-control measures.

In addition, U.S. District Judge Marcia Krieger ruled that the 55 sheriffs who were a part of the lawsuit cannot sue the state in their official capacity.

They can still join the suit as individual citizens.

The other 21 plaintiffs do have standing, and most of the case, which argues that universal background checks and a ban on ammunition magazines that hold more than 15 rounds violate the Second Amendment, will proceed.

Krieger dismissed the claim that the state legal language dealing with readily converted gun magazines — those with removable base plates, allowing for additional rounds to be added via an extender — is “unconstitutionally vague.”

Krieger said that Technical Guidance letters issued by the state Attorney General’s Office after the magazine-limit law passed, outlining the interpretation of the “designed to be readily converted” component of the mag-ban measure, sufficiently addressed that issue.

In the finding, Krieger wrote that magazines with removable base plates — which most possess — “are not considered to be ‘designed to be readily converted’ into large-capacity magazines for purposes of enforcement of the statute.”

Krieger did not dismiss the claim concerning the law’s approach to “continuous possession” of magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.

Under the new law, ownership of magazines that hold more than 15 rounds are grandfathered in for those who owned them before the law changed in July.

One of the complainants, a retired police officer, argued that, because of the law’s vague language, he could not lend family members his magazines that housed more than 15 rounds.

In the finding, Krieger stated the officer’s “intended conduct of ‘lending’ his large-capacity magazines to family members subjects him to a credible threat of criminal prosecution,” which is not necessarily addressed in the Technical Guidance letters.