As
the Colorado General Assembly, guided by an unflinching Democratic leadership,
moves to become the second State to adopt gun control legislation since the
Newtown tragedy, the Basic Freedom
Defense Fund has set its sights on recalling the President
of the State Senate and at least two other legislators, prominent proponents in
the State’s pending gun control efforts.
in
mid-January, the New York State
Assembly
moved fast and clean to approve the country’s most stringent gun control legislation
barely one month after the Newtown tragedy, including limits on assault
weapons, mental health requirements and ammunition magazines. Barely one month after the Newton tragedy,
New York efforts shrewdly occurred so swiftly as to preclude effective
opposition with Governor Andrew Cuomo signing the legislation one hour after
passage.
In
what is may be a warning to other state legislators across the country and even
Members of Congress acting on similar legislation, the BFDF, a tax-exempt
organization based in Durango, Colorado has begun circulating petitions against
politically vulnerable State Representative Mike McLachlan as
local affiliates of BFDF have formed a committee to unseat State Senate
President John Morse (D, Colorado
Springs) and Senator Edie
Hudak
(D, Denver). According to Kjersten
Forseth, legislative aide to Morse, Colorado State Statute requires each
petition to have signatures from 25% of last year’s Presidential vote to
qualify for a recall ballot initiative.
After
recent testimony before the Colorado House Judiciary Committee by former
astronaut Mark Kelly, the country’s
most famous husband to a wounded wife,
former Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford, Colorado’s legislative
package
took shape including a prohibition on gun ownership to individuals with domestic
violence
convictions, a limit on ammunition magazines to 15 rounds, requirement for gun
owners to pay for background checks, an expanded background check process and
required training to receive a concealed weapon permit.
Home
of a state that has experienced the horror of the Columbine attack in 1999 and
the Aurora Theatre shooting last year, Anthony Garcia, who is organizing
the petition effort on behalf of the BFDF, said that the gun control efforts
were ‘an affront to the second amendment, an affront to the Constitution.”
With
a Democratic majority (23 – 12), Forseth confirmed that the Senate had finalized
their legislative efforts on Monday evening, approving all
five bills
with the required fee legislation on the way to Governor Hickenlooper’s (D)
desk for signature. According to Forseth,
the other four bills go back to the State House (with a 39 – 26 Democratic majority)
for approval and then onto the Governor.
In a sign of desperation,
Republicans have promised to filibuster final passage.
Senator Morse, a strong
supporter of the gun control package said “I wasn’t expecting things to get
this divisive. I really thought that after
Sandy Hook that even the NRA recognized we’ve got to do something. “ Commenting on the effort to recall him, Morse
added “that‘s why politicians around the country don’t want to stand up for
this issue.“
As if writing a new chapter to Profiles in Courage, Colorado Democrats might teach Congressional
Dems a thing or two including Morse who said he is willing to lose his seat and
accept whatever the public decides but that he “will
not back down”. In a recent
development Wednesday evening, the State House approved
a bill limiting ammunition magazines to 15 rounds (34 – 30) that is now headed
to the Governor for his signature. The
endangered State Representative McLachlan from a swing district who won
election by less than 800 votes, voted Yes in the face of “threatening and disparaging emails against his
family” stating that “I’m not going to let them bully me. I’m not going to let
them hold out a recall as a way to make me abandon the principles that I stand
for and the reasons people elected me.”
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