March 05, 2019 10:00 AM UTC

Stop This Now: Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg Incites Violence

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• by: Colorado Pols

Much discussion at the Colorado Capitol today about an email blast sent out yesterday afternoon by Republican Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling. Sonnenberg’s well-earned reputation as a safe-seat blowhard nevertheless left recipients unprepared for the over-the-top vitriol exhibited in this shocking stream of consciousness decrying the “evil” playing out at the hands of majority Democrats in the 2019 legislative session of the Colorado General Assembly.

It gets a little…unfocused at times, but here are some key points:

The evil seems to be a continued agenda with absolutely no desire to reach across the aisle to form good policy. From the introduction of bills which would create safe places to inject illegal drugs with new needles given by government to giving our Presidential votes away to the populated states, this governor and lawmakers are taking Colorado down a path of destruction and socialism…

Introduced legislation that would continue Denver’s safe injection sites perpetuates the evil nature of this legislature. For lawmakers to try and provide safe areas and provide tools for drug addicts to shoot up with illegal drugs that we know are bad for them only adds to the destruction of a society.

…The attempt to make sure sex-education and health classes are taught with a specific agenda is a true overreach and are one of the responsibilities of parents. It has never been, nor should it be, a schools responsibility to teach an agenda that is more appropriately taught at home.

The agenda continues with the absence of due-process in legislation that allows an upset family member to have law enforcement remove a law-abiding citizen’s guns. A court could order the removal of firearms without hearing the other side, and then when your guns are removed, you are guilty until you can prove yourself innocent of being mentally unstable. The unintended consequence here is this: folks that are currently talking to counselors may no longer do so if they think that it may be used against them in taking their firearms away.

These are all reasons that the second amendment was adopted – to allow the people to defend themselves against a tyrannical government. The Nazi regime used gun control to disarm its enemies. We know it was evil then, and it continues to be evil today. [Pols emphasis]

The new war on rural Colorado and on its values and traditions has reached a new low and we will continue to see the wedge grow larger under the new state leadership. This capitol is an evil place these days, and constituents are correct to assume that the dysfunction in D.C. has infiltrated the state of Colorado.

Yesterday, we wrote about GOP state lawmakers openly encouraging county governments to declare that they will disregard a law that hasn’t even passed yet–condemned by the sheriff of one of the state’s largest counties as an unconstitutional abuse of power. Today we have a senior Colorado Republican Senator calling the Democratic majority and governor “evil,” likening them by name with “the Nazi regime,” and not-very-subtly suggesting that an armed rebellion would be an appropriate response to a sex ed bill–or a bill to align the state’s presidential votes with the popular vote, or a gun bill supported by over 80% of the public.

We understand that losing the Senate majority in 2018 along with the historic sweep of elected offices in Colorado at every level by Democratic candidates was not a pleasant experience for Republicans. But rationally looking at the bills under debate this year, or simply approaching this from a goal of not encouraging political violence, Sonnenberg’s rhetoric is unbelievably irresponsible. This is not how you rekindle the politically advantageous conservative grassroots outrage of 2013, which is every Republicans’ underlying wish today whether or not there is any objective justification for it.

It’s how you incite angry low-information people to do bad things. And it needs to stop right now.