April 04, 2023 11:38 AM UTC

Ten Years After "Gunapalooza," Dems Make It Look Easy

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• by: Colorado Pols

As Colorado Public Radio’s Bente Birkeland reports, the Democratic majority in the Colorado General Assembly is on the cusp of passing the most substantial package of gun safety reform laws, since at least 2019’s “red flag” law, and rivaling the landmark 2013 legislative session that saw the passage of Colorado’s universal background checks and magazine limit:

On Monday, the Colorado legislature gave its final approval to two Democratic gun bills, the first measures to pass from a package of stricter gun laws lawmakers have proposed this session. Their next stop is Gov. Jared Polis’ desk.

The two bills will:

• Raise the age to purchase any type of firearm to 21

• Add district attorneys, educators, health care providers, and licensed mental health professionals to the list of people who can file an Extreme Risk Protection Order to temporarily remove someone’s guns

Also close to passage is a measure to make it easier to sue firearm manufacturers for liability; that bill is headed to a conference committee to work out differences between the House and Senate versions.

A fourth bill, requiring a three-day waiting period to buy a gun, is still pending in the House but is also expected to clear the legislature relatively soon.

Following student walkouts in response to the shooting at Denver’s East High School of an administrator by a student with a so-called “ghost gun,” a new bill banning such weapons is expected to be introduced soon. The fate of one final piece of gun safety legislation, an assault weapons ban bill with substantially less Democratic support, is expected to be decided in the coming days once the current debate over the state budget is concluded.

Despite the promise by Rocky Mountain Gun Owners’ Taylor “Fuzzy Dudley” Rhodes to turn the Colorado State Capitol into a “circus” in opposition to these bills, the overall muted and ineffectual–when not simply offensive–GOP opposition to this year’s slate of gun safety bills is a tremendous change from ten years ago:

Unlike earlier forays into gun policy, which resulted in significant electoral backlash (a package of 2013 reforms led to historic recalls and contributed to Republicans taking back control of the state Senate), Colorado Democrats have not suffered political damage from the more recent bills they’ve passed.

After the successful 2013 recalls, Republicans regained narrow control of the Colorado Senate in 2014 before the party’s big slide toward the abyss that begin in 2018. Regaining the Senate majority in 2019, undeterred Democrats immediately moved forward with the state’s successful “red flag” law. The failure of recalls initiated in 2019 against a number of Democratic legislators and Gov. Jared Polis, including the failed recall attempt against now-Sen. Tom Sullivan in direct retaliation for the passage of the “red flag” law, effectively broke the spell lingering from the 2013 session. The “wave of fear” local conservative activist Jon Caldara heralded in 2013 was over.

Despite the short-term losses and political turmoil that Democrats in Colorado endured by boldly taking action against gun violence ten years ago, subsequent victories and the overall national shift in the debate over gun policy toward stronger gun safety laws have demonstrated that even in a Western state steeped in gun culture, reform is not only possible but politically prosperous.

Their success is both courage and patience rewarded.