Well, the people that voted for the proggie politicians who came up with this law are the expatriates from states that were turned into cesspools by the proggie politicians they voted for there.
It Just Got Harder for Law-Abiding Citizens to Buy a Gun in Colorado
“There is no doubt in my mind that millions of lives could have been saved if the people were not ‘brainwashed’ about gun ownership and had been well armed. … Gun haters always want to forget the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which is a perfect example of how a ragtag, half-starved group of Jews took 10 handguns and made asses out of the Nazis.” — Theodore Haas, Dachau survivor.
When tragedy strikes, it’s human nature to look for ways to prevent the same thing from happening in the future. For example, the March 2021 shooting at a King Soopers in Boulder, prompted lawmakers to introduce and pass three new gun laws in Colorado.
Indeed, one of those laws, HB21-1298 “Expand Firearm Transfer Background Check Requirements,” went into effect on June 29, and is specifically designed to “address the epidemic of gun violence we have seen in Colorado,” said bill sponsor Sen. Julie Gonzales, D-Denver.
HB 1298
Under existing federal law, if a background check doesn’t come back after three days, gun dealers can transfer a firearm to another person. However, HB 1298 undoes this and requires gun dealers to get approval — no matter how long it takes — before transferring a gun.
Additionally, before the enactment of HB 1298, when a background check resulted in denying someone a firearm transfer, they could appeal the decision, and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation was required to review that person’s background records and render a final decision within 30 days. HB 1298 changes that 30-day deadline to 60 days and allows for indefinite denial in certain instances.
Finally, HB 1298 adds 11 misdemeanors the list of background check disqualifiers and makes it so those convicted of these misdemeanors can’t purchase or possess a gun for five years from the date of conviction.
Will it Work?
The above doesn’t sound too onerous, but let’s remember that this law is one of three new gun control measures passed as a result of the Boulder shooting. So, the question is, will it reduce mass shootings?
According to gun control advocacy group Giffords Law Center’s Annual Gun Law Scorecard, California has the nation’s strongest gun laws and is front-and-center when it comes to gun safety. In fact, it’s earned a coveted “A” ranking by Giffords. Shockingly, California also ranks first when it comes to mass shootings — between 1982 and May 2021, there were 22 mass shootings in California, according to Statista. For context, Florida came in second with 12 mass shootings.
And before you start to blame the above on lax gun laws between 1982 and May 2021, it’s important to note that California began enacting gun control measures in 1863. And even with all these measures, a gunman still killed nine people on May 26, 2021, in San Jose, California.
How Gun Statistics are Twisted
Gun control advocates are quick to point out that states with stricter gun regulations have less gun violence. And they’re right. When it comes to firearm mortality, the states with strict gun regulations fare better, in general, than states with lax laws. For example, Massachusetts has an A- Giffords rating, and the lowest firearm deaths at 3.4 deaths per 100,000 people in 2019, according to the CDC’s latest available data. By comparison, Alaska has an F Giffords rating and the highest firearm deaths at 24.4 deaths per 100,000 people in 2019.
When taken at face value, the above seems to corroborate gun regulations reducing gun violence. But it’s essential to go deeper and look at what the statistics mean when they say, “gun violence.”
Let’s start with Massachusetts. In 2019, there were 247 gun deaths in Massachusetts, according to the latest available data from The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence (EFSGV). However, 95 of those gun deaths were due to homicide. One hundred forty-two were due to suicide. In Alaska, there were 179 gun deaths in 2019. Fifty-one of those were due to homicide, while 117 were due to suicide.
Let’s look at another example. In 2019, Illinois earned an A- from Giffords and had 10.4 firearm deaths per 100,000 people. Maine earned an F and had 11.5 firearm deaths per 100,000 people. However, in Illinois, there were 1,367 gun deaths in 2019 –homicide accounted for 791 of those, while 540 were due to suicide. By comparison, in Maine, there were 163 gun deaths in 2019. Thirteen were due to homicide, while 144 were due to suicide.
What does this tell us? First, when someone says, “gun violence,” they aren’t just talking about homicides and mass shootings — most gun deaths are the result of suicide, not homicide. In fact, over 60 percent of gun deaths are from suicide, while only 35 percent are due to homicide, according to EFSGV.
Second, lax gun laws don’t equal more homicides. To put it bluntly, criminals still get guns and use them to murder in states where it’s harder to obtain guns — Illinois, with its A- rating, has the 13th highest firearm homicide rate in the U.S, according to EFSGV. In Maine, a state with lax gun regulations, less than 10 percent of gun deaths were due to homicides in 2019 — the rate is so low that the CDC considers it “statistically unreliable” and doesn’t calculate it against other states.
To put it another way, in states with strict gun regulations there are fewer gun-related suicide deaths, and therefore less overall gun violence, but gun violence due to criminal activity isn’t deterred by strict gun regulations.
Consequently, gun regulations prevent law-abiding citizens from obtaining a gun, and thus help avert gun-related suicides, but they don’t stop criminals from getting firearms and committing homicides and mass shootings.
Where This Leaves Us
Reducing gun-related suicides is an admirable and worthy goal. But that’s not why lawmakers passed HB 1298.
HB 1298 was passed in the wake of the Boulder shooting and advertised as reducing criminal gun violence. It won’t.
As written before, according to the latest research from James Alan Fox, Lipman Family Professor Criminology, Law, and Public Policy, “In terms of mass killers, these are very determined individuals, very difficult people to stop. … And oftentimes they will get the gun or get the weapon that they need regardless of what roadblocks you put in their path.”
The 2nd Amendment allows citizens to not only arm themselves against criminals but also to be a force against tyrannical governments. Unfortunately, some lawmakers use tragedies to push their agenda and misrepresent gun violence statistics so that people believe access to guns causes criminal activity.
HB 1298 and the other gun laws that passed do nothing more than curtail law-abiding citizens’ access to firearms and continue to erode our 2nd Amendment rights.