Colorado/United States – -(AmmoLand.com)- Former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper is holding himself out as a centrist and a problem-solver. Well, that’s nowhere close to the truth when it comes to Second Amendment issues. He lines up with most of the so-called “mainstream” of the Democratic Party.
In the wake of the tragic mass shootings in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater and a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school, Hickenlooper signed a lot of anti-Second Amendment legislation into law. This included a law setting an arbitrary cap on magazine capacity – although the bill in question was 15 rounds instead of 10. Like we’re supposed to be grateful for that. Take a gander at the Duncan decision before you give Hickenlooper any credit on this one.
Now, according to the Denver Post, Hickenlooper wants a national gun licensing scheme to determine eligibility to own a firearm. Wasn’t that what the National Instant Check System is supposed to be? Granted, NICS has problems and they need to be fixed, but it was supposed to be a means to tell if a felon or fugitive was trying to buy a gun from a federally-licensed dealer. If a cop can get information about whether you have a record in a few minutes during a traffic stop, then why can’t a FFL get a response in that same time frame?
First of all, licensing has long been a goal of anti-Second Amendment extremists, going back to LBJ in 1968. This is part of their long game, one that has been far better than ours has been. Of course, anti-Second Amendment extremists have never had to explain why licensing schemes in New York and Illinois have failed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
So why pursue it? Well, the answer is simple – anti-Second Amendment extremists are more interested in limiting the rights of law-abiding citizens than they are about really addressing the misuse of firearms by criminals. Programs like Project Exile, which could deter the misuse of firearms without impacting law-abiding citizens, never get attention.
Requiring a license adds a major hurdle to exercising our Second Amendment rights – to the point it makes them privileges that can be revoked at the whim of some government bureaucrat. Remember, Sarah Brady did describe her desired end-state was a “needs-based” licensing scheme.
For all his faults, Wayne LaPierre got it right when he once said that Bill Clinton needed “a level of killing” back in 2000, the last time a major push for federal licensing took place. LaPierre’s stand arguably resulted in the nomination of two of the five Supreme Court justices who struck down handgun bans in Washington, D.C. and Chicago on Second Amendment grounds when George W. Bush beat Al Gore in the insanely close 2000 presidential election.
Hopefully, the push for gun licensing can help bring about a similar defeat for anti-Second Amendment extremism in 2020. That will only happen if Second Amendment supporters unite. Join the NRA, support NRA-ILA and NRA-PVF, and get ready for the electoral battle of our lifetime.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
Kindly cite the constitutional authority for GCA-68 and your beloved Project Exile. What part of “unalienable [that which cannot be taken away] rights” and “shall not be infringed” do you and your duplicitous brethren at the NRA fail to comprehend? The USA wasn’t founded by “law-abiding citizens.” It was founded by felons who committed treason, sedition and armed rebellion against their government. Even before our War of Independence, many Founding Fathers were anything but “law-abiding.” John Hancock was the most prominent smuggler and tax evader in the colonies. Ethan Allen would have been executed for land fraud if New York… Read more »
maga, register lawyer/politicians & their pie-holes
Apparently the checks are still coming in and aren’t bouncing. Harold can’t write anything without praising LaPierre (kissing his ass) for some imagined good deed or “spinning” the NRA’s compromises and failures under LaPierre into successes.
“NICS has problems and they need to be fixed” The problem with NICS is that it exists at all. It is de facto registration of every firearm sold through a licensed dealer. The system can be shut down whenever some bureaucrat bigot feels like it, effectively ending all legal firearm sales with the flip of a figurative switch. Yes, I know private sales are still – thankfully! – legal in many states and unstoppable in the rest. Note how many efforts there are to end that. “UNIVERSAL BACKGROUND CHECKS” ARE GUN REGISTRATION AND THE ONLY REASON TO REGISTER IS TO… Read more »
Great minds (at least great tyrannical minds) think alike … “A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.” – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
“Now, according to the Denver Post, Hickenlooper wants a national gun licensing scheme to determine eligibility to own a firearm. Wasn’t that what the National Instant Check System is supposed to be? Granted, NICS has problems and they need to be fixed, but it was supposed to be a means to tell if a felon or fugitive was trying to buy a gun from a federally-licensed dealer.” The Unconstitutional NICS needs to be abolished. Not fixed to add more ways to deny American their rights. And if you think that won’t happen with the red flag laws and now the… Read more »
How did a guy named Chickencooper get elected governor?
Hickenstooper has been talking gun confiscation for years in Cabalorado.
TAPS Act is bigger news. End of Constitution. Threat assessment = FEMA camp. If US Corporation thinks you are against their fake authoritarian rule then you go to FEMA camp and meet Barry’s guillotines.
https://babin.house.gov/taps/
https://thecommonsenseshow.com/agenda-21-conspiracy-united-states/passage-equality-and-taps-acts-marks-rollout-4th-reich
Democratic Party. No matter the person talked about/to if this is in their bio, you are wasting your time discussing CS matter. PC has eroded the thinking process to the point, as we can see happening, they want to open the doors to everyone. They say for votes, but I am under the impression one has to be a citizen WITH A VOTERS ID to be able to vote in any election. It doesn’t seem to matter what anyone says or does. No matter the facts are shown, as long as they have a closed mind, and pelosi and schumer… Read more »
Firearm licensing is the first step to confiscation; you forgot that part.