The Colorado legislature has a problem: It is addicted to gun control laws and, just like any addict, it can’t just stop. The new assault weapons ban awaits Governor Jared Polis’ signature and there’s already another crazy law being considered.
It must be admitted the Colorado lawmakers aren’t pikers. Like a junkie, they’re always after the better high. The ban passed by the legislature is the most sweeping prohibition so far. Instead of a list of features such as a pistol grip or a flash hider, Colorado’s assault weapons ban has two criteria: Semiautomatic and “high-capacity” detachable magazine. Doesn’t matter if it’s a rifle, shotgun, or handgun; if it’s self-loading and has got a standard-capacity, detachable magazine, it could be on the list.
Any assault weapons ban is nothing but virtue-signaling. Like the 1994-2004 federal ban, they don’t have any significant impact on crime. They also won’t have any impact on the 30 million-plus rifles Americans already own. It’s only a prohibition against selling or transferring those rifles and it’s impossible to enforce simply because there are no records of who currently owns them.
Ban fans like to claim semiautomatic rifles are a key factor in mass shootings but the claim raises issues they might be hard-pressed to explain. According to the Violence Project’s Mass Shooter Database, a grand total of 86 rifles like the AR-15 and AK-47S have been used in mass shootings since the Colt AR-15 Sporter made its debut in late 1963. Do the math: That’s less than three ten-thousandths of a percent (.0003%) of the estimated total.
The larger sticky issue for the gun control gang is explaining why there weren’t any mass shootings in the 75 years from the introduction of the Remington Autoloading Rifle to the first use of an AR-15 in a mass shooting in 1980. The Remington Autoloading Rifle was a semiautomatic rifle chambered for a more powerful round than the AR-15’s 5.56×45. Its successor, the Remington Model 8 capable of accepting detachable magazines holding up to 20 cartridges.
Instead of simply accepting more restrictions, the people of Colorado should be asking their legislators why all of the gun control laws they’ve passed since 2014 have not only failed to produce any reduction in violence, they haven’t prevented a triple-digit increase in the rate of gun-related murders, even including a 21% drop in the rate between 2022 and 2023. It’s obvious the kudos from Everytown and Giffords are completely based on the number of gun control laws, not the results.
Colorado may be one of the more egregious failures, but it’s not alone. Yet, for some reason, the public doesn’t call for a reckoning; it accepts the empty promises of the snake-oil hucksters because those are all they have heard.
The citizens of Colorado are saddled with a bunch of addicts in Denver. They deserve better.
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