March 25, 2026 03:03 PM UTC

Rocky Mountain Gun Owners Back To Hunting "RiNOs"

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• by: Colorado Pols

The “no compromise” gun rights organization Rocky Mountain Gun Owners has a richly-earned reputation for making more trouble for ostensibly fellow Republicans than Democrats, playing a key role in the Colorado Republican Party’s lurch to the far right in recent years that also tracked with the GOP’s overall decline to durable minority status and loss of every statewide office. Along the way, RMGO has treated the public to such disasteful lowlights as the failed recall of the father of an Aurora theater shooting victim and testimony on gun control legislation that asked lawmakers to exclude Black children from gun violence statistics.

Every year, RMGO reliably singles out a Republican lawmaker they consider insufficiently committed to their cause, which is opposition to any form of gun control, including basic background checks for gun purchases that have been settled law for decades. Last year RMGO’s hostility toward one of the most ostentatiously pro-gun Republicans in the Colorado House, Rep. Ryan Armagost, was one of several factors that drove Armagost from office under a cloud.

This year, it’s GOP Rep. Anthony Hartsook of Douglas County taking RMGO’s friendly fire:

Colorado’s anti-gun laws are usually sponsored by Democrat Legislators.

Unfortunately, sometimes Republicans sponsor a bill that also negatively affects our gun rights.

That’s the case with Rep. Anthony Hartsook, who sponsored two bills this year that have negative implications for our Right to Self-Defense.

HB26-1108: Colorado Bureau of Investigation Access Federal Fingerprint Search Service would have sent the fingerprints of every concealed carry permit holder in Colorado to the FBI in a permanent database.

And HB26-1302: Colorado Bureau of Investigation Firearms InstaCheck Unit Operating Hours which allows the CBI to potentially delay the processing of background checks for Coloradans attempting to legally purchase a firearm.

Rep. Hartsook is a sponsor on both of these bad bills!

RMGO is circulating a video clip (click above right) that purports to depict their “lobbyist” being kicked out of the Colorado House lobby by an obviously angry Rep. Hartsook. The two bills in question that Hartsook has co-sponsored are hardly what you’d call major gun control bills, one joining an existing FBI fingerprint program and the other largely a budget measure to allow the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to set its own hours for approving gun background checks–much less of a big deal now that the state has a 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases.

But therein lies the problem for RMGO, who doesn’t want bills that do anything about guns except make them easier to obtain. Even a perfectly rational bill to let the CBI set its own hours becomes the latest Second Amendment hill to die on. You’re never going to find Hartsook in support of the higher-profile gun bills like expanding the state’s “red flag” law, even though those bills enjoy plenty of public support. But he’s vilified by RMGO with more ferocity than the Democrats who actually sponsor those bills. And with RMGO’s help, Hartsook has a primary opponent who qualified for the June 30th ballot–a rematch against his 2022 primary opponent Terry Dodd.

RMGO demands total irrational loyalty to their single issue, and nothing else matters. Hartsook’s safe Republican seat is the perfect target for RMGO to install their brand of candidate, who can be an otherwise totally unelectable lunatic as long as they say the right things about guns. It’s an important part of how the Colorado Republican legislative minority has become increasingly packed with embarrassing fringe figures in recent years.

And in the end, why there are so few of them.