February 28, 2013 08:36 AM UTC

Guns: Probably Not The Next "Obamacare"

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Durango Herald's Joe Hanel takes a peek behind the curtain at the "grassroots uprising" against proposed gun safety legislation in Colorado. No surprises, but an important piece of this story to firmly establish in the record:

Experienced Republican campaigners have entered the fight against Rep. Mike McLachlan, D-Durango, although it remains to be seen how much they will assist in an effort to recall him.

A new nonprofit group called Colorado Citizens Protecting Our Constitution took out Web ads and a full-page print ad in the Feb. 17 Durango Herald to criticize McLachlan’s votes on four gun bills…

But little is known about the group or its funding. As a 501(c)4 nonprofit, the group does not have to reveal its donors.

It was registered Feb. 13, five days before McLachlan’s votes on the gun bills.

Tim Pollard placed the ads for the group. He is chief operating officer for EIS Solutions, a Grand Junction political-advocacy business that often works for the natural-gas and oil industry. Josh Penry, a former Senate minority leader and Republican candidate for governor, is EIS’s most well-known employee.

Early effort by some of our state's best-known Republican political operatives to set up the debate over guns in the Colorado legislature as a 2014 campaign issue is, like we said, totally predictable. It's a sign, as if the angry pro-gun mobs crashing legislative town hall meetings a la "Obamacare" August 2009 last weekend weren't sufficient proof–and yes, the crazies taking the unhinged low information talk-radio faux outrage to an ugly level–that Republicans intend to use the issue to turn out conservative voters next year.

The problem is, blustery nonsense aside, the gun lobby is on the wrong side of public opinion. Despite the intensity this issue provokes among one segment of voters, the fact is that polls consistently show support–as they did not with "Obamacare"–for the legislation actually being proposed at the Colorado Capitol. A new Wall Street Journal poll yesterday shows that 61% of the public supports stricter laws on gun sales. Only 34% said existing laws governing the sale of guns were good enough, and just a tiny 4% agree with local gun right activists like Rocky Mountain Gun Owners that these laws should actually be made weaker.

Needless to say, these are numbers that health care reform proponents would have begged for in 2009.

So what does this mean? Well, usual suspects like EIS Solutions, unless they've got a contract from the gun industry (which can't be ruled out), are mercenaries primarily interested in exploiting issues for Republican electoral gain. The increasingly well-funded campaign against the gun safety bills at the Capitol is a clear sign that Republicans think this issue will work for them electorally in 2014. It's what they've got to work with right now.

But once Dudley Brown stops bloviating and sober analysis begins, it doesn't actually look like it will.