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.