March 01, 2013 09:10 AM UTC

Why i$ Rocky Mountain Gun Owners $o Fired Up?

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• by: Colorado Pols

FRIDAY UPDATE: A look at some of the ads at the Colorado Gun Market gives one an indication of why the site's parent "nonprofit organization," Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, is so up in arms about background checks. Here's an ad on display right now for a Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle, complete with two extra 30-round Magpul magazines and hundreds of rounds of ammunition:

Terms of sale: Cash. Sale will be completed in a public, well lit place of my choosing. You…must appear to look over 21. You must appear not to be a criminal, look funny, drool, say odd things or in any way appear to be banned from owning guns. If anything looks funny or smells fishy, no sale. Also, you will come alone as will I…

On the one hand, you have retail sales and gun shows, where a Colorado Bureau of Investigations background check is required to sell a gun. And on the other, you have RMGO's website, where you can sell assault weapons complete with Magpul magazines and enough ammo to do something really tragic–and the buyer need only (in this case, anyway) "appear to look over 21."

Bottom line: the very same organization making money off these unaccountable sales of guns, providing a marketplace to make buying a gun without a background check in Colorado as easy as eBay, is flooding the halls of the Capitol with angry gun lovers to stop the background check loophole from being closed.

It really is as bad as it looks. And they must not be allowed to get away with it.

Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, which bills itself as "Colorado's only no-compromise gun rights organization," has led the campaign against gun safety legislation before the Colorado legislature this year. As we've covered in this space as this debate has unfolded, RMGO has a motivated following, and when they say "no compromise" they mean it–even to the point of wanted existing laws requiring background checks for retail gun sales repealed.

RMGO also, particularly in contentious moments like these, raises lots of money, which pays the salaries of RMGO staff like the organization's director Dudley Brown in addition to funding their campaign ads, mailers, and other paid communications. In addition to accepting donations, RMGO sells "memberships" in the organization.

As it turns out, membership has its privileges. Dudley Brown's Rocky Mountain Gun Owners group operates a website called the Colorado Gun Market–basically, a website intended to connect private buyers of guns with sellers. The site's FAQ states that "posts and purchases are handled by individuals and must be done so according to Colorado law." As you know, at the present, Colorado law allows firearms to be sold in "private transactions" without a background check. In an effort to close this loophole, Democrats have proposed HB13-1229, which requires a background check be performed for these types of private sales.

As we said, RMGO opposes HB13-1229 in the strongest possible terms.This ad for RMGO appears at the top of the Colorado Gun Market website:

You see, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners has more than a philosophical interest in keeping the so-called "background check loophole" unclosed. As the operator of the Colorado Gun Market website, RMGO facilitates the unregulated private sale of an unknown (but presumably significant) number of guns in this state. RMGO doesn't collect a fee for these ads per se, but only paying RMGO members ($30 per year) are allowed to post ads. Anyone can respond to the ads, and–bottom line here–the guns are sold with no background check.

The fact is, passage of HB13-1229 would not necessarily force the shut down of the Colorado Gun Market–it would simply require that purchasers of firearms undergo the same background check retail buyers of guns do.

If requiring background checks would, ipso facto, result in the shut down of this website, the next logical question must be this: what kinds of gun sales were happening there to begin with? Isn't it possible that a Craig's List of grey market gun sales is exactly the kind of thing that justifies this bill?

Far too often, when it seems like someone must have an ulterior motive to be so angry, they do.