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March 19, 2013 08:11 AM UTC

Hickenlooper To Sign Gun Bills Tomorrow

  • 18 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

FOX 31's Eli Stokols:

Gov. John Hickenlooper will sign three Democratic gun control proposals into law this week, including the controversial ban on high-capacity magazines that has outraged gun owners threatening a recall effort against the governor and ballot measures to reverse the ban.

Hickenlooper will sign the three gun control bills Wednesday morning in his office and take questions from the press, as FOX31 Denver first reported Monday afternoon and the governor’s spokesman, Eric Brown, later confirmed…

Wednesday’s signing ceremony will solidify a huge political victory for gun control advocates in Colorado and across the nation, many of whom view this moderate, western state as a sudden vanguard on the issue, one that could even impact what proposals are eventually adopted in Washington.

Opponents seized on any sign, however wishful, that Gov. John Hickenlooper might be wavering on support for House Bill 1224 to limit magazine capacity. Hickenlooper had called for closing the so-called "background check loophole" in his State of the State address, so there was never any realistic chance he would veto House Bill 1229. Likewise with 1224–a few trademark Hickenlooper foot-in-mouths notwithstanding, he was always supportive, and helping communicate that during the bill's final votes may have made the difference.

Tomorrow's bill signing will cement a major political victory for Democrats, and a model of successful action in the face of all the pressure Republican opponents and their grassroots allies could muster. The next event after that, however, could prove the greatest win for Democrats and credibility hit for Republicans. On July 1, when House Bills 1224 and 1229 take effect, there will be a massive gap between reality and the hysterical predictions from conservative lawmakers and the gun lobby about the "unintended consequences" of these bills. When the breathless predictions that "almost all magazines will be banned" and "private transfers will be prohibited" fail to materialize…well, the explanations are going to be pretty rich we expect.

The gap between opponents' hysterical rhetoric and a much less controversial reality, not to mention the enduring public support for these bills shown in public opinion polls, is why it was so important for Democrats to actually get them passed. The mobs of angry, misinformed gun activists at the Capitol were hardly representative of majority opinion on this issue, and their low-information belligerence became a huge liability–assuming the goal was ever to persuade Democrats to kill these bills. Repetition of the same nonsense doesn't make it more persuasive.

Against that campaign of unfocused anger and misinformation, proponents brought in astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, to testify. They brought in families from the Columbine High School massacre, the shootings in Aurora last summer, and at Newtown, CT in December. Do you want to know why Democrats held together and passed these bills? Listen to Mark Kelly for five minutes, or Jane Dougherty, whose sister Mary Sherlach was gunned down trying to save little kids at Sandy Hook Elementary.

And compare them to Dudley Brown of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.

Yes, folks, this is a big win for Democrats politically. But it's also a win for, in broad philosophical terms, the truth.

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18 thoughts on “Hickenlooper To Sign Gun Bills Tomorrow”

  1. First and foremost this is a win for the victim's families and the innocent lives lost.  After that it's a win for sane people everywhere (including Independents and knowledgeable/moderate Republicans).  Let's hope this is the beginning in ending gun violence.

  2. Wow, you mean the horn honking yokels, foaming-at-the-mouth radio hosts, and impotent threats about "repurcussions" couldn't stop rational, reasonable measures?

    I guess it is a good day.

  3. Ending gun violence isn't going to happen but reducing it can happen, especially the mass incidents. This is also a turning point in the gun lobby's ability to cow Dem pols. The polls are so opposite to what the gun lobby claims, which is always that the people will punish them at the polls if they support any form of gun control, that Dem pols finally are coming to realize they don't have to remain curled up in fetal position.

    A few hundred noise producers on the Capitol steps aren't enough to intimidate them anymore in the face of the polls they're seeing. The horrible e-mails that the gun nuts send them hurt the gun lobby's cause a lot more than they help. Who, in their right mind, would concede an iota of credibility to the arguments of anyone who would write e-mails full of vile insults and the hope that awful things will happen to a person's children? These are not the way a person who has a leg to stand on presents a case.

    I used to wonder, when Dems still cowered before the big bad Rs in spite of polls showing, say, 60% public suppport on a given issue, what it would take to give them a back bone. Apparently numbers as high as 90% do the trick.

    Of course I'm talking about Dem pols in general. There have always been courageous ones. Hats off to Fields and Carroll.

    1. Here's a brilliant ticket for the GOP:  Dudley Brown for Guv and Dave Kopel for Lt. Guv.  Obviously, an abrogation of the constitution this arrogant on the part of Dems warrants a challenge by the best and the brightest of 2nd Amendment experts.  The other matters of state that occupy the Governor's attention simply pale in comparision.

      Am I right ArapaGOP, or what?

  6. What truth? The truth that the highest-capacity magazine used by James Holmes saved more lives than it took? The truth that the Columbine massacre took place during the middle of the previous Assault Weapons Ban? The truth that an $85 million company is moving out of the state, along with 200 jobs, directly as a result of this legislation? The truth that, before this push for restrictions by national influences, Governor Hickenlooper said "I’m not sure there is any way in a free society to be able [to stop a deranged individual from assembling a deadly arsenal]… If there were no assault weapons available and no this or no that, this guy is going find something, right? He’s going to know how to create a bomb." 

    What truth won here? 

    1. Bullshit. Those mass-murder magazines have saved zero lives. I've yet to hear of a single instance where a magazine of over 5 rounds was used in self-defense. Not one.

      And no company is moving out of state. Magpul will continue to build their mass-murder tools here in Colorado. A proud symbol of our state. Maybe when their magazines are used by mass murders, the state department of business development can put out a press release reminding everyone the magazines came from Colorado…

        2.  So now it's facebook and youtube where yer gettin' yer news, pilgrim?

           Stop pissin' your pants yokel.

          David's correct, maggotpul ain't goin' anywhere. Reason one is now they have a new toy to sell you goonies. A 15 round mag. Two, the buyers ain't goin' anywhere, the business is still here, the equipment in place.

          The "headline news" you referred us to from KMGH is on maggotpul's FACEBOOK PAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' That's like writing "I love Mary" on your peechee.

          Now, should this company actually act on their idiotic threat and abandon thier plant here, they're doing it to cut thier nose off to spit the proverbial face.

          So they just leave their employees high and dry? For what? Why?

          Calm down yokel, yer gonna blow yer big toe off with yer sig sauer if ya don't get hold of yerself.

    2. The truth that reasonable, rational people outnumber shrill, terrified fools who don't feel safe in a world that's evolving in spite of their fervent prayers, who shout in impotent rage about uprisings and revolution, clueless to the rumblings of the real revolution; the one that's even scarier than they can imagine.

      Progress. 

  7. Ah, yes, the ever-popular fallacious argument (or two), combined with one whiny company who will have to find 200 new employees and a new manufacturing facility rather than stay located in a state that has put no restrictions on their being here or on what they manufacture to sell to authorized buyers or other states.

    Truth is a bit broader than your statement – but hopefully not broader than your comprehension.

    1. Don't underestimate the emotions of a pissed off gun owner.  Deep Red states will be lining up to court Magpul and give them all kinds of government tax breaks to relocate.  The rub is that they are coddling Merchants of Death and maybe Colorado will actually get an indirect benefit from being the state that drove the Merchants of Death away.  Why would you want to relocate to a state that fawns over Merchants of Death?  One bad company moves out 2-5 five Merchants of Peace companies move in.  I'll take that exchange any day.

    2. Yeah, why couldn't they stay in a state where there products are illegal to buy? It's just like Jack Daniels making whiskey in a dry county. Only even dumber, because injected plastic doesn't depend on terroir. 

      1. Hey – they're free to make whatever decision they want. If they want to waste money getting a new plant set up and training new employees, more power to them. If they've got that kind of money to make a political statement,it's theirs to make. I certainly make those decisions on a smaller scale in boycotting certain products.

  8. This past weekend, per the Denver paper, a homeowner in Golden, angered that someone rang his doorbell and ran, discharged 2 rounds into the ground. The comments from the deranged were illuminating as they were defending the homeowner who just could not anticipate this could be a prank, they were all speculating about the immense danger he "might' have been in. "No one who was not there" could criticize the bozo who was defending his home and family from what may have been an imminent home invasion. The gun freaks are a fearful group

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