I enjoy target shooting. I’ve had my eye on a 9 mm pistol manufactured by a company called Springfield. When I went to buy it, I found it was banned in Colorado. The online retail site posted, “not for sale in California or Colorado.”
Does that speak volumes on where our state is going?
So, I turned my attention to a pistol by the classic gun maker Walther, a model PPX, only to find it is also banned in Colorado.
Ruger has a new “American Competition” 9mm designed for, duh, competition shooting. Looks like it will be banned in Colorado.
A few minutes on the internet and I found the same is true of pistols from Wilson Combat, Remington, Kel-Tec, Arex, F&N, Taurus, and scads of small designer brands. I’m sure there are dozens more.
Now there is nothing all that special about these pistols. They work and function like most all others. The only difference is that their magazines hold more than 15 rounds of ammunition, a violation of the silly anti-gun law former Gov. Hickenlooper signed.
We were promised at the time that this magazine limit would never ban guns. I supposed that’s true in the same way banning batteries doesn’t ban your kid’s toy. But without the batteries the toy is only a doorstop. Same with a pistol without a magazine.
There may be some after-market, 15-round magazines that could fit some of these guns. But a police officer would never trust her life to a cheap magazine that wasn’t made by the manufacturer for her very gun. Neither would I.
Every year, new models of regular guns are being introduced that are banned in Colorado. Makes you think that’s what they had in mind when they passed it. But on the small chance that they meant what they said, now is the time for the legislature to move the magazine limit from 15 to at least 17, to cover common pistols.
If such a bill is killed by the legislature it would prove what we suspected all along. They are out to ban our guns.
It looks like there will be at least three anti-gun bills pushed by our progressive, anti-civil liberties legislature this year. And for each there should be an amendment proposed on the floor of both the House and Senate so that we voters can see how consistent our elected servants are.
One bill will require a waiting period to buy a gun, a constitutionally guaranteed right. The argument is that it will give a person time to “cool down” before they do something rash.
If that argument is valid, then the same legislators who support it must also support an amendment to the bill for a waiting period for an abortion, giving time to “cool down” from any rash decision. We’re not taking away any guaranteed right here, just giving people the needed time to think about the ramifications of their action.
Also, should a person be attacked during her waiting period for her gun, the state of Colorado should be liable for civil charges and monetary penalties for denying her right to self-defense. That must be spelled out in any waiting period law.
The same goes for any “safe storage” law being proposed. If a person can’t get to her firearm in time to defend herself, the state must be held responsible. And that must be clear in the safe storage law.
Another proposal being bandied about would require a victim of a gun theft to report it to the police. After all, a stolen gun could be used as a threat to others.
The same law should require anyone victimized by a sexual assault be required to report that, too. A rapist on the loose is certainly a threat to others.
I can hear the objections already. Reporting the assault could put the victim in further danger as police reports are public record. What? Like stolen gun reports aren’t public, too? Like those victims aren’t at risk, either?
Sexual crimes are physiologically devastating to the victim. Very true. Might gun robberies also be devastating? And just how would a victim of sexual assault who also had a gun stolen in the same incident report one without the other?
Further shortsighted attacks on our gun rights are coming soon. We can at least demand consistency.
Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver.
