As predicted, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper has just signed three gun control bills passed by the Rocky Mountain State’s legislature. HB 1224 limits ammunition magazines to 15 rounds; HB 1229 requires “universal background checks” for gun sales or transfers; and HB 1228, forces gun customers to pay for the costs of the background checks. As denverpost.com reports, the Hickster signed the bills and waved the bloody shirt, simultaneously. “Each time he signed a bill, applause erupted from lawmakers and their guests, who included Jane Dougherty, whose sister was killed in the attack at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn.; Sandy Phillips, whose daughter was killed in Aurora; and Tom Mauser, whose son was killed in the 1999 Columbine shooting in Colorado . . .
Phillips, who lost daughter Jessica Ghawi, reminded Hickenlooper that it was the eight-month anniversary of the theater rampage.
“You’ve given us a real gift today,” she told the governor.
Later, Phillips added: “Thank you so much. You’re leading the entire country.”
Hopefully, not. In fact, Hickenlooper’s spokesmouth was quick to unleash damage control on his boss’s behalf.
“Large magazines have the potential to turn killers into killing machines,” said Hickenlooper spokesman Eric Brown.
“This law won’t stop bad people from doing bad things. But it does open the possibility that a person determined to kill people might be slowed down even for an instant. That instant might mean the difference between life and death for some people.”
Well it’s certainly going to be the death of 200+ jobs in Colorado. true to their word, CO-based mag makers Magpul are pulling out. Here’s their statement, via Facebook:
With the signing of the HB 1224, we want to reassure Colorado residents, now officially in occupied territory, that the “Boulder Airlift” will continue until we can no longer legally ship to CO residents at the approach of the July 1 deadline, so long as demand continues.
We are looking at additional ways to give Coloradans the opportunity to buy the magazines they need prior to the enactment date, as although we’ve been swamped with tens of thousands of orders, our shipping department limitations have only allowed us to get a few hundred thousand magazines out to CO residents…a small portion of our monthly production. We’ll continue to support the Airlift as long as demand exists, and up to the active date of the legislation, and we’ve allocated a little over a million magazines for the effort up to that point, give or take.
Customers in the rest of the country should rest assured that the airlift only takes a small portion of our production, and magazines and other products are continuing to ship to the rest of the nation. Our transition to a new home will occur in a phased and orderly a manner to allow us to continue to serve our customers during the move, as well as to allow an orderly transition for affected employees. We are actively working on those plans.
Nick, I loved reading your very candid and detailed expose on your competition experience! Also, I’ve seen quite a few competition videos before and this is by far the most enjoyable one I have ever watched. I anxiously await more updates! Your experience on Team FNH is the best new feature on The Truth About Guns. Godspeed and best of luck to you!
I have a theory about why the opening of the FA list will never happen:
The community of FA owners has a tremendous amount of money invested in those items right now. If the list were ever opened, the prices would plummet worse than any stock market crash in history. Instead of several thousand dollars for a Glock 18, it would only be $100 more than a 17. Drop in auto sears would go from thousands of dollars to $50 and made by everyone with a machine shop. Some of the old classics would hold a lot of their value. But the desirability of owning a WWII Thompson or BAR would go down quite a bit if I could get a brand new one for the same price as high end AR. $10K MAC10’s would be a couple of hundred bucks (and they still wouldn’t run right.)
The one group that could really work towards this goal has a distinct financial reason to see the status quo maintained.
Just my .02 and overpriced at that.
Why not machine guns?
Because the grabbers are like my ex-wife. Before gaining total control, they demoralize you by sucking the fun out of everything.
Magpul, We would love for you to come to PA………
If you wanted to you could design a system that allows a seller to query the NICS system to determine whether a buyer is disqualified from buying a gun without creating a real registry. Bloomberg and the antis are not going to propose such a system because it doesn’t give them what they want. Pro-gun types aren’t going to propose a system because they don’t think it will do any good.
Most folks in the middle want some sort of UBCS because it sounds good, makes sense in the abstract, and sounds compromise-y and moderate, regardless of how useful it would be. While, if we can avoid a UBCS we certainly should, if the politics of the moment dictate that one WILL be established, I would rather it be designed explicitly to prevent mischief, rather than the one the antis are trying to force.
It’s like any other form of Terrorism; we have to win every fight, they only have to win once.
BTW why do these State Troopes dress like Facists?
Thank you Governor Chickenpooper, I feel safer already. 🙁
Congratulations, Mike Bloomberg! First you bought a city, and then you bought a whole state! And damn cheaply, too.
The people of Colorado must be so pleased knowing that the state is now officially New York City’s sixth borough.
Hello Ralph. I’m trapped behind the lines in the now Progressive Paradise of the Rocky Mountains. I think our main hope is to try to vote out the Gun Prohibitionist legislators in the next election. Unfortunately the damage done by Bloomberg and his progressive comrades will be very difficult to fix.
But will CO export its garbage to NJ, too?
Wow, I had NO IDEA NJ was garbageless.
I think maybe they forget. Dylan Klebold, on of the Columbine, CO shooters left 13 ten rnd mags behind… Guess he was in compliance with the AWB back then
How about Eric Harris, whose father was AF covert intelligence – Eric Harris claimed he had been drugged repeatedly at Plattsburgh AFB. Police were ordered by various intel personnel NOT to go into the building, and numerous witnesses saw NATO vans parked in the area….
How difficult, at zero dark thirty with the sound of glass breaking, would it be to have a bandolier type holster with pistol to grab and throw on before grabbing the ccarbine or shotgun?
JWN; I hate to tell you just how closely I sleep with the handgun.
The Feinstein AWB Bill was a Red Herring from the get go to get everyone to take their eyes off their respective State Legislatures where countless AWB Bans and gun control bills have been passed or are in the process of being passed!
WAKE UP…We (Gunners) have been losing ground (and the debate) from the get go because we foolishly agreed to take part in the discussion about giving up UNALIENABLE Rights…a discussion which should have never happened, EVER!
I’ve had extremly few Malfs with a pump shotgun and concidering that 16 feet is about max for the average residence interior 12 ga bird shot should be quite effective.
This is actually solid advice and is what is taught to all SF operators…do not perform SPORTS (and/or other malfunction drills) but rather quickly transition two your secondary weapon and stay in the fight.
Dear Governor Bootlicker: FOAD!!! Go jump off a tall bridge into a dry riverbed. Pull your head out of your ass!! Go fly a kite!!!
And: Go out into the public and explain to each law abiding gun owner how you are going to make up for the lost revenue that is going to occur from Magpul hauling ass out of your state, be sure to assure them that they will be just fine!!! Please send TTAG a video of these interviews!!
What I find disappointing (on both sides of the gun debate, frankly) is pessimism and distrust toward the people around us. The prevalent argument against gun ownership seems to be that nobody can be trusted to manage instruments that are capable of inflicting great bodily harm or death because of the potential (inevitable?) harm these devices will unleash on society. The argument in favor of gun ownership ultimately centers on the notion that we’re each responsible for our own self-preservation, yet that notion is inseparable from the idea that there exist those who would threaten our lives and we need the option of lethal force to dispense with those people. I don’t want to make light of that idea (it certainly is true for some people, and I don’t dismiss the various lessons of history that demonstrate how it could become true for me, as well), but the fact is that in my life, today, there are no people threatening my life. It’s something of a catch-22 that naming potential threats (home invaders, gang-bangers, drug runners, government tyranny, foreign invaders, etc.) is both an act of vigilance and of paranoia. There’s a fine line between the two, I suppose.
In any case, the reason for that long intro is to underscore why I support citizens owning full-auto firearms and what I see as right about that: it’s the trust factor. Instead of getting mired in fear & what-ifs, I like the idea of living in a world where my neighbor can own a machine gun and I don’t need to worry that it will (accidentally or intentionally) harm me or someone I care about. I like the idea that I should be free to choose whether to own a FA device based on personal factors like my budget and preference and not restricted from owning one due to nothing more than distrust. I’m confident that, for my own part, I could safely keep one without presenting undue risk to my neighbors (the types of questions I ask myself are boring, objective safety concerns like whether I could store the ammunition in a way such that a fire in my home wouldn’t threaten my neighbors–yep). There’s no reasonable risk that my simple possession of a FA device could infringe upon someone else’s rights; that’s really my litmus test for whether I should have a particular freedom.
I might add, you need some additional training if you didn’t spot the guy who is very likely packing a piece. He telegraphs it.
Look at the video again. If you’ve actually been in one of the lovely urban areas of the US, he’s pretty easy to spot.
Hint: He’s not the guy up front, shooting off his mouth and waving his arms around.
The only other group in the USA that pisses people off more than the NRA is the ACLU.
Thanks for confirming my assumptions Nick! I had forgotten about this email 🙂
If I could find a decent range or large enough private property, I’d love to set up one target @ 500m and one @ 500 yards just to see if I could still knock them out in one shot without adjustments.
There might be a correlation if gun access is compared within a “culture” or simalar social context.
Then again, NYC is not similar to my Wisconsin.
Never mind.
Now to discuss MOA is not 1 inch at 100 yds but 1.047197580733 inches or 10.47 inches not 10 at 1000 yds. 🙂
I’ll keep this home defense scenario advice in mind, when I find the Easter bunny, Santa Claus and 12 heavily armed elves in my living room robbing the place. Its a combat scenario not a HD scenario, since last I checked we don’t live in Somalia. My P226 or mossy 500 are more than enough for HD and yes I won 2 ARs.
SO Obama sends digital toilet paper? I can only laugh at the fact gun banners been working since 1968 to ban guns seems here plan does not work.
Hey, it’s better than being the new KKK, am I right?
I guess domestic violence without the use of guns is of no importance. Only violence with guns matters.
When they banned cowboys and Indians from the play ground, kids had to find a new game … Nazis and Jews seemed like a logical choice.
Slip and Fall deaths account for 16,000 per year (on average).
The ugly truth of the Obama gun-grabbing campaign is simple enough: As the former state senator for South Side Chicago, Obama couldn’t do anything to slow the ghetto murder rate. He and his like-minded political associates can’t impose on their voters to stop shooting each other. They are unwilling to declare an emergency in those neighborhoods to temporarily suspend 4th Amendment protections long enough to clean out the revolvers and cheap pistols. That would be the obvious solution to urban black America’s murder problem. So they dream of curtailing our 2nd Amendment rights permanently, hoping (it’s nothing more) that the gang bangers will eventually run out of guns. Condensed version: O and his care more about not offending their voters than about the US Constitution. Obvious. Pathetic.
That communists have been supplying military weapons of every kind to South America and Central America for the last 50 years, makes no never-mind? Nope, the U.S. is the problem.
Just spitballin’ here, but maybe we shouldn’t listen to the most corrupt government in this hemisphere tell us about how we need more restrictive gun laws. And we shouldn’t listen to what Mexico tells us, either.
As we all know, this law will not prevent crime. Instead it may turn people into criminals who simply handle a magazine (as explained by Jon Caldara of the Independence Institute). What’s next on the agenda? Will Colorado create a law that defines thoughtcrime?
Well folks it appears that we may have slowed down the gun grabbers,as of 3-19-13,Senator Harry Reid, head of the Senate,has announced to his fellow Democrats that they may not have enough votes to pass the following-assault rifle ban,magazine capacity limit ban,or the background checks on private transfers of firearms.Possible passing the school police funding will probably pass,as will the mentally ill database bill,also being looked at is better prosecutions on offenders of standing background checks law.We can’t stop the pressure yet,keep letting them know that you don’t want more gun control!Keep your powder dry.Thank-You.
I’d love to see who Alter and Bashir think they could “confront” -Alter has the perfect head for flashlight therapy and that stinkin’ piece of shit Bashir could use some vise grips on his nose-just a twist mind you old chap-Epstein might offer a blow job.
Robert, you forgot to put the subtitle beneath that photo:
“The Un-f*ckables.”
I find it HILARIOUS that just a few months ago, Selena Gomez appeared on the Demand A Plan video calling for more gun control, yet here she is glorifying gun violence! So much for demanding a plan! I too am in the age demographic but I don’t know, these girls don’t really appeal to me, they have childish faces and to me that’s a little weird.
Which states would’ve take Holton’s guns? Avoiding them sounds like a protip.
I find the shirts pretty obnoxious, especially the shirts on sister site http://www.wearagun.com. Nothing says being an ambassador for the People of the Gun like wearing a shirt that none-too-subtly informs the reader that you are big tough guy more than willing to shoot people. Not the image I’d like to project.
… and dont forget that “liberal” Kagan is a gun owner who reportedly took her first antelope in Oct. She wont be fooled. Libs who count her in their court on this will be disappointed. I would not be surprised to see a 6-3 decision striking down some of these laws.