July 31, 2026 • 35 mins
In this episode of The Dan Caplis Show, the host shares a personal story of why he left Colorado and moved to Wyoming, citing the state's rapid decline into a "leftist cesspool" with crumbling infrastructure, rising taxes, and a growing crime problem. He recalls the state's once-strong libertarian roots and how they've been eroded over the years.
The speaker discusses the recent article highlighting the average Colorado resident's hefty state-sanctioned fees, which have more than tripled since 2008. He also touches on the state's transportation woes, including the lack of maintenance on roads like Glenwood Canyon, which led to a harrowing experience with a blown tire. Additionally, he addresses the new AR-15 law, which requires a background check, application, and training course to purchase a semi-automatic rifle.
The host expresses his frustration with the law, arguing that it's a thinly veiled attempt to limit gun ownership and that the training course is a barrier designed to make it expensive for people to buy an AR-15. He also shares his concerns about the current Supreme Court makeup and the potential outcome of the law.
If you're concerned about the direction of Colorado's government and the impact on its residents, tune in to this episode to hear the host's scathing critique and his proposed solution to the state's problems.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Dan Caplis and welcome to today's online podcast
edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to
give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind,
and to subscribe, download and listen to the show every
single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And honor to hang out with you today. Yeah, so,
you know, it's funny. I was talking to Dan yesterday
and he's one of my favorite people in the world,
and I was telling him. I was like, you know,
one of the things I'm gonna talk about when I
set in for you is why I left Colorado. There
was a story today in the Gazette.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
And the headline is the top Taxes.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Here's how much each Colorado resident pays in fees. And
we'll get to that because it's a lot, and you
know it.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I'm not going to be telling you anything you don't
already know.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
But my wife and I we were We lived in
Colorado for eight years. We came in in twenty eighteen,
shortly after Paulus had been elected, and me being a
libertarian unaffiliated, I was like, you know what, I've heard
good things about Colorado, about the libertarian strength there, that
it's an independent, Western minded state that it just kind of,
(01:12):
you know, has a little bit of common sense.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
They've got the Tabor the Taxpayer.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Bill of Rights, and then they got this new progressive governor,
which you know, I mean, I don't know about it,
but I heard he's like a leftist libertarian, so he's
probably not going to go crazy. And my wife had
gotten a job offer here, and I grew up in
Arizona and Kentucky. Kentucky is my home state. Arizona is
kind of my other home because of my parents' missionary work,
and I love the West. I hate humidity, and so
(01:38):
I was like, oh man, this'd be awesome. It's like,
you know, if you've ever experienced an Arizona summer or
you've ever experienced a Kentucky summer, both when it comes
to weatherside our health, right like, it's either it's one
hundred and twenty eight degrees and your innards are baking
in Arizona, or it's ninety five with one hundred and
(01:59):
seventy two percent humidity in Kentucky and either one you're boiling.
You're either boiling or you're baking. And so Colorado was like, Wow,
it's right right in the middle. It's like dry, non
humid summers, but not like one hundred and thirty degrees.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
So we made the move and we were excited and
we loved it.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
And for the first several years it was it was
really amazing until the pandemic kicked in and then everything
kind of changed. But what I watched over that eight
years was one governor serve two terms and take one
of what I thought was certainly at the time that
I moved here, one of the greatest states in America.
(02:40):
One of the states was some of the best opportunity,
you know, good gun laws when I first moved here,
low taxes, you know. And I saw that and I
was like, I saw Governor Polus and the nut jobs
under the Golden Dome literally take that great state and
(03:04):
turn it into a infrastructure crumbling, crime ridden, leftist cesspool.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
And I'm just being honest, right, like, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Insulting those that are still here fighting for the state,
and I admire you. But what did it for us
is is earlier this year because we lived in Colorado
Springs until May of this year and we moved to Laramie, Wyoming.
I think it was in early April, and we lived
in a nice safe neighborhood in Colorado Springs, and there
(03:39):
was an armed carjacking two blocks from our house in
a nice safe neighborhood. And there they they they were there.
There had been for the last couple of months, these
gangs of four guys that would show up at somebody's
house in the middle of the night and one of
them they would be armed, and one of them would
(04:00):
taunt the security camera, and then the others would break
into the cars. And it was just everywhere you looked homelessness.
And on top of that, I was paying so much
in taxes, property taxes.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
My property taxes went up seventy five.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Percent when they when they did the whole trick to
try to get rid of tabor.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
And it seemed like every year.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
My wife is the financial manager of the household, and
so she was like she would come to me every
year and go, I don't understand this.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
We have been.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
In our chosen careers and the things that we do
in our business, we've been successful, and it's like we
make more and they take more and we end up
with less at the end of the day.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
And it's like.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Everything we do that is successful, we get punished for
it in this state. And on top of that, you know,
we lived in a house that was a beautiful house,
but it was stacked on top.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Of each other, and you know, the neighbor.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
The neighbors like somewhere down on the street, if somebody
lit up a doobie of four blocks away, you would
smell it, you know, And it was just it was
just insane. And we just said we'd had enough, and
we were like, we're out of here. So we sold
the house and we started looking in Wyoming and we
found this beautiful place in Laramie, and I was like,
(05:22):
there's freedom here.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
There's no state income taxes.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I mean, we're paying we're saving literally, let's just say
tens of thousands of dollars a year, just an income
taxes and insurance costs and fees and all that kind
of stuff. And when I went to get my driver's
license in my or to get my cars registered in Wyoming,
it was kind of funny.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I went in.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
And I got everything done in one office in less
than an hour, and I was like, good look, and
it was like maybe half the price of what i'd pay.
And I was just like, you've got to be kidding me.
This is insane. So the point I'm making is I
still love Colorado and I still spend a lot of time.
(06:06):
One of the reasons why we moved to Laramie is
we could have bests of both worlds, right, Like, I mean,
Wyoming is awesome, and there's a lot here in terms
of beauty and stuff like that, not very many people,
which is great, But also we still love Colorado and
we still want to spend time in Colorado. I just
don't want I got to the point. Here's what I'm
getting at. Some people say, why not stay and fight?
(06:29):
And here's what made my decision. Ultimately, what made my decision.
The Republicans couldn't get together. The Republicans in Colorado are
like a bunch of junior high high school kids and
the drama that follows them around and it's pathetic. And
(06:50):
I looked at this, and I looked at the battle
for the Governor's office, and I looked at the battle
for all this stuff, and I'm like, you know what,
they can't stop stabbing each other in the back, the
gun issue, right, just getting people together on issues that matter.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
I was like, you can't. I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
And I was like, well, if we're not going to
fight together, why fight? And I was like that, and
I know some of you guys might be like, Wow,
that's a talk show host saying something like that. I
can't believe it. And I'm I'm just telling you the
bare truth. I hope Colorado can be saved. But as
(07:30):
time goes on, you are letting California imports and Washington
State imports, and East Coast imports and Oregon State imports.
People that are coming from these states where they have
literally destroyed those states. They are coming here and they're
just they're trying to get away from the mess they made,
(07:52):
but they don't realize they're the.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Reason the mess existed. And I'll give you another example.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
This was when I knew that we were on a trajectory,
I wasn't sure we could recover from when they when
they when they ran that when they start when they
decided to reintroduce wolves. And I remember going to the
Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, which by the way, is like the
best zoo in the world besides the San Diego Zoo.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
It's just freaking amazing.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
And they had these teenagers there who don't know their
head from the hole in the ground, and they're trying
to sell this wolf thing, and they they're they're pushing
a bunch of misinformation. And I love wolves, by the way,
I love wildlife. I love the environment. One of the
things I love about Colorado is the pristine open spaces.
But I knew that wolves were going to be a disaster.
(08:38):
I knew they were, and I knew that they were
going to be I knew the bill was going to
pass because it was done by quote unquote democracy, and
you had a bunch of like poodle and shit zoo owning,
purse dog owning Subaru drivers from Boulder that were going
to vote for something that was going to affect Colorado
ranchers on the western slopes, and they weren't going to
(09:00):
care what that effect was. And they were just say,
I'm better than you because I'm saving the planet. And
now the wolves are eating their shitsus and now they're like,
oh no, we got got It's a complete disaster. And
then they said and this happened a few years ago.
If you remember, because I covered this when I was
here on Kihu full time. I said, I told you
about the story. But they they did another referendum where
(09:24):
they were like, you know what, we need everybody to
have free lunch, and we're going to tax people who
make more than three hundred thousand dollars a year a
small percentage to pay for free lunch.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
And I warned you at the time.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I said, hey, they're not going to stop at this
small percentage, and they're not going to stop at three
hundred thousand.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
And I was right.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
They went and raised it already because they decided they
need more money for it. And I was like, what
that is not democracy. That's socialism. When you have when
you can take a majority of the people to vote
to take away something from a minority of the people
and they can't stop it.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
That's not democracy.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
That's socialism, which is what democra one democracy is. You
need a representative republic so that the mob can't just
come in and run rough shot over everybody. Right, it's
taxation without representation because the people who make over three
hundred thousand, there's no way that's a small percentage of
the population. There's no way they can actually defend themselves.
(10:18):
So that's not taxation with representation.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
And they did, and it was It's.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Been one thing after another, and so this article comes
out and it shows that on average, each Colorado resident
paid five thousand dollars in state sanctioned fees last year.
The report analyzed how fees have affected Colorado's economy. They
(10:45):
found that fee revenue has more than tripled crippled since
two thousand and eight. See, we got we got duped
by this. We saw when we came to Colorado. We
were like, oh, Tabor, we got the taxpayer bill. Rice,
they can't raise our taxes well without us voting on it.
Little did I know at the time, all they can
raise your taxes. All they have to do is call
(11:06):
it a fee. So, more than thirty years after Colorado
voters approved the taxpayer Bill of Rights, which is basically
whittled down to nothing now thanks to the socialists under
the Golden Dome, a growing share of state spending now
falls outside the voter approved limits intended to restrain government growth.
(11:27):
And here's the thing. You drive through Denver and look,
I've been all over the country. One of my favorite
places that go is Phoenix, Arizona. Not in the summer.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
The infrastructure there is ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
There are no potholes and there's traffic flow all day
long all over town.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
It's amazing because they have enough lanes.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
And I remember some years ago also when I was
here on KHW on a regular basis, there was a
story that s DOT had put out there statement like
our goal is climate change. Like literally, they were like,
we're not even worried about transportation anymore. We are the
Colorado Department of Transportation, but we're not even worried about that.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Our number one goal is to stop climate change.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
And so they put themselves in charge on elected bureaucrats
in charge of development rules and rights in communities around
the state, and so they became the choke point, and
it's a stated goal. They're like, we're not gonna We're
not gonna put more lanes on I twenty five. We're
not gonna we're not gonna build out the infrastructure so
that it handles the flow of traffic. We're actually gonna
(12:32):
constrict it. We're gonna make it more difficult. Because now
here's the next big thing they want to do.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
They want you to vote.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
To raise your taxes yet again, probably through fees to
pay for the front range rail system, which bike maybe
maybe maybe a half percent of the population will even use,
but the rest of the population will pay for it,
and that will be their excuse for not actually putting
extra lanes on the road. So traffic will still suck,
(13:02):
the drivers will still be horrible, the subarus will still
be going.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Too slow in the left hand lane and the express lane.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
But you'll be paying for some lefty Berkeley graduate who
decided to move to California Colorado because California is too
expensive to ride on the Front Range train from Colorado
Springs to Fort Collins. That's what you'll be paying for
if you don't get together, unify and stop this nonsense.
(13:32):
And that means you got to swallow a lot of
pride from the past squabbles and the past fights that
have broken out between those on the right and the Libertarians.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
And the Republicans.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Got to come together and go look for the sake
of the future of this great state. We got to
unify and fight something, because if we don't, the whole
thing becomes California only worse because we don't have a
Silicon Valley to stop what's happening here. California has gone
on longer than it should have because of Silicon Valley,
(14:05):
but they're about to end that because they're about to
pass a billionaire Stax and when they do that, Silicon
Valley will be completely gone. It'll move to Austin entirely,
or Florida it'll be silicon swamps. But we don't have
that to even back us up and prop us up
as long as California has been propped up. So gotta
(14:26):
get it together. Four six hundred ninety two dollars. And
when we continue, guess how much you pay every year
more than the average driver in America to repair your
car because Pothole Polis won't do his damn job and
fix the Colorado roads.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I'll give you that number when we continue.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Leland Conween for the Great Dan Caplis on the Dan
Caplis Show.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So this is what you pay as a Colorado.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Resident, more than the average American driver because of the
roads that Pothole Polis has refused to fix. On average,
you spent about one thousand dollars eight hundred and ninety
one dollars a year extra.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
That's more than.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Everyone else pays because of the bad roads. I was
driving through Glenwood Canyon. It was last spring, not this year.
But the year before I had just bought some new
tires from my truck and they were like really good tires,
good off road tires. They're like three grand for the set.
Fortunately I bought the insurance on them too. But I'm
(15:34):
driving through Glenwood Canyon and I was trying that road
is pathetic. I know there's a lot of issues with
the engineering of it because of the fact that it
goes through Glenwood Canyon, But.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
I've seen other roads.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I mean, Arizona has a canyon very similar to Glenwood Canyon.
That's right when you cross on I fifteen, when you
cross that corner of that north west corner of Arizona
into Nevada, very similar to glen Canyon. Does not have
these problems, very similar climate, does not have these problems.
And it's just it's it's pathetically put together, and so
(16:11):
it's horrible. And I was trying to avoid some of
these horrible potholes to not knock my truck out of alignment,
and then there was construction debris on the side that
got left. I mean, it was ridiculous, and I hear
when I literally blew my tires, like blew it brand
spanking new tire, and I remember I'm sitting there and
(16:31):
it's like, as you know, if you've been through Glenwood Canyon,
you can't there's no place to go. I was fortunate
that I was just passing the on ramp to the
Bear Creek Rest area, which is the last for ten miles.
There's no other way to get off the road there,
so there's no shoulder for ten miles, and so I
was able to get over on that on ramp. But
(16:52):
the on ramp is at a hill at such an
angle that the ones at the bottom of the the
people at the bottom of the hill don't see what's
at the top, and they start accelerating super fast. And
so I'm sitting here, going I am not going to
try to change my tire with these vehicles flying past me.
So I called and this was really cool. Colorado State
(17:14):
Troopers are amazing. They called Colorado State Police and I
was like, Hey, I'm out here and I can't change
my tire because cars are flying by me. I don't
have any place else to go. I can't get anywhere else.
And they said, no problem, will be there, Like it
was like five minutes they got there. It was unbelievable.
How fast they got there. Colorado State Troopers amazing. So
(17:36):
they get there, trooper comes in, he turns his lights
on so that slows everybody down. And then the Sea
Dot comes in and they help slow everybody down.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
And then my towing insurance kicks in. They come and they.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
They get me set up so that I can get
the tire changed and all that kind of stuff, which
normally I changed my own tire, but in that situation,
was I going to do it? And me and the
troopers sat there and talked about guns. It's pretty awesome.
But yeah, that fortunately I had the insurance, but that
was that was all caused by the lack of maintenance
of roads by pothole polish that right there, So you're
paying like a grand you shouldn't. All right, one other fight,
(18:11):
we got to talk about SBOO three, the AR fifteen
law that's taking effects. We'll talk about that next time.
Leland Conway in for Dan Capitlis on The Dan Caplis Show.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
You're listening to the Dan Caplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Dan Capitalist on the Dan Caplis Show. Follow along on Instagram.
It's at Gavin Newsom's hair. Facebook is Leland, Conway and
x Is at Leland Show.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
So August one tomorrow, officially.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
The quasi AR fifteen band that the crazy nut jobs
in the Colorado Legislature passed will take effect now for
all intents and purposes. At actually took effect three days
ago because of the three day waiting period to purchase
a firearm in the state of Colorado. And so it's
been an absolute mad crap show for a long time
(19:12):
regarding this law. Now, I work in the firearms industry,
full disclosure, and I testified against this bill when it
was before the state legislature along with a lot of
other people in the industry, and it was actually one
thing that was a glorious unity because there was actually
a lot of unity when that took place in trying
to stop this nonsense. But one of the things that
(19:34):
concerns me about this bill, first of all, the given
excuse that they have for why they did it this way,
because originally they were trying to make it a fixed magazine.
You had to have a fixed magazine, so you couldn't
have an AR fifteen at all. Basically had to be
modified so badly that it wouldn't even really resemble an
AR fifteen.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
But how this.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Works is, in order to purchase from now on, if
you want to purchase a gas powered, semi automatic detachable
magazine rifle in the state of Colorado, you have to
fill out an application to make this purchase from the
state's Firearms a safety system, which will then get routed
to your local county sheriff, at which point they will
(20:19):
process the application and will do a background check on you,
which you have to do anyway to buy a gun.
Then you will pay the sheriff of fifty two dollars
fee plus whatever else. The fifty two dollars goes to
Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and the Sheriff's office will likely
charge you an additional fee on top of that. Then
they will review your application, and my understanding in this
(20:41):
review is that they can determine your eligibility based on
more than just a background check. That's my understanding of it,
which means it may not be a shall issue system
for AR fifteen's it could be a may issue. So
I'm in the scenarios in which I could see a
sheriff denying that would be your social media posts or something.
(21:03):
And so if you'd like, like say Boulder. They probably
are going to do everything they can to slow this
process down. If they can, then the Sheriff's office will
send you Once you get the eligibility card, you will
then be they will be checking to see whether or
not you need to take a four hour course or
(21:23):
a twelve hour course. And if you need to take
the twelve hour course, that will be because you've never
had hunter education, So you will have to take the
hunter education course and then you'll have to take an
additional four hour course. Now what's really ridiculous about this
is that they've specifically excluded the eight hour now in
Colorado concealed carry permit course from standing in as that
(21:49):
eight hour hunter education course. Now, I've had Colorado hunter education.
It's a fine class, there's nothing wrong with it, but
it doesn't it Most people don't use AR fifteen style
rifles to hunt, and in Colorado you can't have a
semi automatic with more than a five round magazine to
(22:10):
hunt anyway, so it's not you're not typically like the
typical AR fifteen, which is going to have AMMO that's
two two, three, five, five six. That is not typically
a hunting rifle. You might use it to stop a
varmot on your farm, but you're not hunting, you know,
meal deer or elk with a two two, three or
five five six. That's basically a glorified twenty two with
(22:32):
higher velocity is basically what it is. So it's not
the kind of rifle that you would use for hunting.
So this is one area that this is really dumb.
Then after you finish the course, you have to pass
a test, a hands on practical test of ninety percent
or better. And my understanding from someone that I was
talking to in the industry the other day, is that
if you make one mistake, like at all related to safety,
(22:57):
they'll fail you and you have to go through the
whole process again. And this these classes are going to
cost a lot of money because it's a lot of time.
It's an instructor's time for either eight or four or
twelve hours. So the goal here was always to put
a barrier that made it so expensive that nobody would
actually want to go through the process of buying an
(23:18):
AR fifteen. And in addition to that, it actually backfired
and this made national news. It backfired because they sold
more AR fifteens in the last two months in Colorado
than they've ever sold in Colorado before, because everybody went
out and bought one because they knew that on August
(23:38):
one they wouldn't be able to buy one without this course.
And so they literally put more AR fifteens in the
hands of people than they ever would have if they'd
just left us alone.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
And there was.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Statement by Tom Sullivan, who helped pass this bill, and
he was the sponsor of it. And look, I get it.
I understand he lost his son in a mass shooting.
And it's always like, look, I have empathy for that,
and I have sympathy for that, but your tragedy doesn't
(24:16):
give you a right to infringe on my rights. And
and and Sullivan. Sullivan was quoted in a local media
outlet just the last couple of days saying that this
was going to be this was going to create safety
for Colorado's and I am like, okay, so you mean
the mass shooters and the gang members that are shooting
(24:39):
each other with these types of rifles as well on
I two twenty five and Aurora, they're going to be like, oh,
you know what, never mind, I haven't had the hunter
safety class yet. I mean, come on, dude, Like what
are you this This argument is so asinine and and
I don't I don't want to insult people, and I
(25:02):
don't want to dehumanize people that I disagree with politically.
But I'm getting I've had it up to here with
the gun thing, I really have, which this was another
reason why I moved to Wyoming, because I was like, look,
if the government can have it, I can have it.
And there's two things I'm an absolutist on. One is
(25:23):
the Second Amendment and the other's the First Amendment. Like
I have my political beliefs and you have your political beliefs.
But at the end of the day, I am an
absolutist on our right to express our political beliefs whatever
they may be, even if they're offensive. And I am
an absolutist on my right to own anything the government has.
And I'm sorry, but if the government can have an
(25:44):
F fifteen, I should be able to have it too.
I Mean, the whole point is that we are the government.
They work for us, not the other way around. You
are not making Americans or Colorado and safer by limiting
their access to guns. Now, ar Fifteen's I'll be honest
with you, I do not use an AR fifteen for
home defense.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
I just don't. It's to me. It's to me it's a.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Shotgun or my let's just say it wouldn't be legal
in Colorado pistol that has way more than fifteen rounds
because of that stupid law. But that's neither here nor there.
It doesn't matter what I would use an AR fifteen for.
It matters that I can have it. It only matters
(26:26):
that I can have it. And the fact that you
don't want me to have it is completely irrelevant to
the right that I was given by God. That's the
thing that they don't understand. On the left. You were
not given the right to defend your life, your family,
your country, and your fellow neighbor from tyranny. You were
(26:47):
not given that right by the government. Tom Sullivan didn't
give you that right. Jared Poulis didn't give you that right.
Phil Weisner doesn't give you that right. For that matter,
Donald Trump doesn't give you that right. That right comes
from the creator who created us. And I'm going to
(27:08):
do this, and I've You've probably heard me say this before,
but I'll do it again because I think it's worth notating.
And I kind of wish I could have coffee with
Tom Sullivan because I want to tell him this to
his face, like, not in a mean way, like I mean,
you know, respectfully, I want to sit down and have
coffee with the guy and say, listen, man, let me
(27:29):
help you understand what the Second Amendment means and the context.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Of why it was passed. When it was passed.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
At the time that the Second Amendment came into being,
there were two factions in the American government, the Federalists
and the anti Federalists. And the Federalists were led by
Alexander Hamilton, and he felt like we should have a
strong centralized government, and Thomas Jefferson was on the other side,
and he said, no, we should have a decentralized confederacy,
(28:02):
like a loose conglomerate of states that govern themselves and
then just come together when we need national defense. Otherwise
we leave each other alone and we trade together.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
But that's it.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
And when the argument was being had, Hamilton's people said, yeah, well,
you know, we get it, but there's not going to
be well. Jefferson's people said, look, we can't have a
centralized government because it's going to devolve into tyranny, and
the Hamilton's people go, no, it's not gonna do it.
Come on, Thomas, that's dumb. It's not going to devolve
(28:37):
into tyranny because the people are going to be armed.
And the Jeffersonians said, of course, the people are going
to be armed, we know that, but we still don't
want to give the government that much power. So, in
other words, the only thing they agreed on was that
the people were going to be armed for the express purpose.
And this is what you had to understand when the
hamilton When the Hamiltonians said, of course, you know, it's
(28:59):
okay to have a statist government, to have a centralized government,
because the people will be armed. That will keep us
in check. You gotta understand the entire premise of the
conversation around the people being armed was tied to stopping tyranny,
and it was understood that the ability of men as
(29:22):
in human beings, to rise up against tyranny is sacrosanc
from our creator. Our founders understood this because they had
just gone through it. Is it is only a small
minded idiot who thinks.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Well, it's a militia. So what it's talking about is
we didn't have a military at the time. Shut the
hell up. You don't understand how this country was founded.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
These guys that are arguing over this are not arguing
over whether you should be armed, because they under they
had all just put their necks on the line, like literally,
had they failed, they would have all been executed by hanging.
Had they failed, they would have all lost everything. They
had just taken up arms and risen up against tyranny.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
As a matter of.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Fact, the whole battle started when they tried to take
our cannons away, which Joe Biden, President Potato thought we
couldn't have. So, in other words, the context of the
time was very clear that it was about people being
able to protect themselves from an unruly, overly tyrannical government.
(30:29):
And so it doesn't really matter, This is my point.
It doesn't really matter what your opinion is on guns.
It doesn't matter because the Second Amendment is absolute. It's
an amendment in the Bill of Rights because our founders
understood that was something they weren't allowed to touch. That's
(30:49):
why it's in there. They're not allowed to touch your
freedom of religion, which Colorado has trampled all over. They
are not allowed to touch your freedom of expression, which
Colorado has trampled all over over see the cakes.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
They are not.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Allowed to trample on your right to press or gathering together.
And they are not allowed to trample on your right
to defend yourself from criminals or tyrants.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
They are not allowed.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
And it literally is written into the constitutional documents.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
This isn't a.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Well, you know, we'll go part way on this. No,
that's not the kind that It's not that kind of right.
It's the kind of right that's written down hardcore in stone,
can't be moved. This is like when you try to
argue against the Second Amendment. It's like trying to argue
with God about one of the Ten Commandments. No, they're
in there, and they're on stone on purpose. So I
(31:47):
don't know what's going to happen with this. It's obviously egregious.
The fear that I have is about this current Supreme
Court makeup. I don't think this current Well, I'll tell
you what. I'll explain this. Here's what I we'll talk
about the prediction of where this goes when we continue.
But the only solution I think to this is maybe
(32:07):
one you might not want to hear. We'll discuss that
coming up when we continue. Leland Conway is sitting in
for Dan Kaplis on The Dankpla Show.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
And now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
So, the solution and what will be the outcome with
this AR fifteen bill here in Colorado Number one. I
don't know that it'll get overturned by the Supreme Court.
And here's my fear. The current makeup of the court
is pro gun ish. But what they're not going to
stand for is an outright ban on AR Fifteen's what
they will be okay with is the additional training, and
(32:44):
it's going to be irregardless of actually it's not a word,
but it's regardless of the fact that the training is
in place not actually to train people about firearms, but
rather to essentially put a monetary block so that you
have fewer people that can afford an AIR fifteen. Meanwhile,
criminals continue to get them through the black market, and
(33:06):
it doesn't solve any problems that way. So here's the solution,
and this I believe is the real only And look, look,
I hope that the Supreme Court overturns it. I just
don't think that we should bank that they will. This
particular Supreme Court is a little bit weird. They're a
little bit unpredictable. They are pro gun to an extent,
(33:26):
but not to the extent that I would like them
to be.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
So that's up in the air.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
The most surefire solution to this is changed the law,
and that means that we've got to do a better
job of recruiting people to the Second Amendment. It doesn't
have you don't have to be Republican, you don't have
to be libertarian. You know, Democrats can have guns too.
But we've got to help people understand the reason why
(33:53):
it's important. And it's not just for hunting. It's not
just for target or sports shooting. It's for the protection
against criminals and tyranny. That's what it is for. And
we've got to do a better job of educating people
on that. And we've got to fire some of these
people under the dome. There's really no other way around it.
It has to be done. And so that means unifying,
(34:18):
you know, getting people together, independents, libertarians, Republicans, putting a
side differences and recognizing that the rights that we have
as human beings supersedes our petty differences politically and supersedes
just about everything else, and the right to express ourselves religiously, politically, journalistically,
(34:43):
and the right to protect ourselves. That's all sacro sanct
that's why it's written down. I mean, if you had
a ten Commandments of human rights, it's the American Bill
of Rights. And there isn't really any two ways about that. Yeah,
I mean, I'm not super hopeful. I feel for the
(35:05):
people in Colorado that still believe in the Second Amendment.
I know it's going to be a tough road convince
these people otherwise, and I'll help every bit I can
from just north of the border. I promise you that,
because I still love the state. Hey, it's been an
honor to set in for Dan Caplis today. I hope
you enjoyed it. Love to do it again sometime. Always
(35:26):
love Colorado, Always love you. Thanks for listening Dan Capla's show.
This is Dan Caplis and welcome to today's online podcast
edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to
give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind,
and to subscribe, download and listen to the show every
single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And honor to hang out with you today. Yeah, so,
you know, it's funny. I was talking to Dan yesterday
and he's one of my favorite people in the world,
and I was telling him. I was like, you know,
one of the things I'm gonna talk about when I
set in for you is why I left Colorado. There
was a story today in the Gazette.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
And the headline is the top Taxes.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Here's how much each Colorado resident pays in fees. And
we'll get to that because it's a lot, and you
know it.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I'm not going to be telling you anything you don't
already know.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
But my wife and I we were We lived in
Colorado for eight years. We came in in twenty eighteen,
shortly after Paulus had been elected, and me being a
libertarian unaffiliated, I was like, you know what, I've heard
good things about Colorado, about the libertarian strength there, that
it's an independent, Western minded state that it just kind of,
(01:12):
you know, has a little bit of common sense.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
They've got the Tabor the Taxpayer.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Bill of Rights, and then they got this new progressive governor,
which you know, I mean, I don't know about it,
but I heard he's like a leftist libertarian, so he's
probably not going to go crazy. And my wife had
gotten a job offer here, and I grew up in
Arizona and Kentucky. Kentucky is my home state. Arizona is
kind of my other home because of my parents' missionary work,
and I love the West. I hate humidity, and so
(01:38):
I was like, oh man, this'd be awesome. It's like,
you know, if you've ever experienced an Arizona summer or
you've ever experienced a Kentucky summer, both when it comes
to weatherside our health, right like, it's either it's one
hundred and twenty eight degrees and your innards are baking
in Arizona, or it's ninety five with one hundred and
(01:59):
seventy two percent humidity in Kentucky and either one you're boiling.
You're either boiling or you're baking. And so Colorado was like, Wow,
it's right right in the middle. It's like dry, non
humid summers, but not like one hundred and thirty degrees.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
So we made the move and we were excited and
we loved it.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
And for the first several years it was it was
really amazing until the pandemic kicked in and then everything
kind of changed. But what I watched over that eight
years was one governor serve two terms and take one
of what I thought was certainly at the time that
I moved here, one of the greatest states in America.
(02:40):
One of the states was some of the best opportunity,
you know, good gun laws when I first moved here,
low taxes, you know. And I saw that and I
was like, I saw Governor Polus and the nut jobs
under the Golden Dome literally take that great state and
(03:04):
turn it into a infrastructure crumbling, crime ridden, leftist cesspool.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
And I'm just being honest, right, like, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Insulting those that are still here fighting for the state,
and I admire you. But what did it for us
is is earlier this year because we lived in Colorado
Springs until May of this year and we moved to Laramie, Wyoming.
I think it was in early April, and we lived
in a nice safe neighborhood in Colorado Springs, and there
(03:39):
was an armed carjacking two blocks from our house in
a nice safe neighborhood. And there they they they were there.
There had been for the last couple of months, these
gangs of four guys that would show up at somebody's
house in the middle of the night and one of
them they would be armed, and one of them would
(04:00):
taunt the security camera, and then the others would break
into the cars. And it was just everywhere you looked homelessness.
And on top of that, I was paying so much
in taxes, property taxes.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
My property taxes went up seventy five.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Percent when they when they did the whole trick to
try to get rid of tabor.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
And it seemed like every year.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
My wife is the financial manager of the household, and
so she was like she would come to me every
year and go, I don't understand this.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
We have been.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
In our chosen careers and the things that we do
in our business, we've been successful, and it's like we
make more and they take more and we end up
with less at the end of the day.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
And it's like.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Everything we do that is successful, we get punished for
it in this state. And on top of that, you know,
we lived in a house that was a beautiful house,
but it was stacked on top.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Of each other, and you know, the neighbor.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
The neighbors like somewhere down on the street, if somebody
lit up a doobie of four blocks away, you would
smell it, you know, And it was just it was
just insane. And we just said we'd had enough, and
we were like, we're out of here. So we sold
the house and we started looking in Wyoming and we
found this beautiful place in Laramie, and I was like,
(05:22):
there's freedom here.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
There's no state income taxes.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I mean, we're paying we're saving literally, let's just say
tens of thousands of dollars a year, just an income
taxes and insurance costs and fees and all that kind
of stuff. And when I went to get my driver's
license in my or to get my cars registered in Wyoming,
it was kind of funny.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
I went in.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
And I got everything done in one office in less
than an hour, and I was like, good look, and
it was like maybe half the price of what i'd pay.
And I was just like, you've got to be kidding me.
This is insane. So the point I'm making is I
still love Colorado and I still spend a lot of time.
(06:06):
One of the reasons why we moved to Laramie is
we could have bests of both worlds, right, Like, I mean,
Wyoming is awesome, and there's a lot here in terms
of beauty and stuff like that, not very many people,
which is great, But also we still love Colorado and
we still want to spend time in Colorado. I just
don't want I got to the point. Here's what I'm
getting at. Some people say, why not stay and fight?
(06:29):
And here's what made my decision. Ultimately, what made my decision.
The Republicans couldn't get together. The Republicans in Colorado are
like a bunch of junior high high school kids and
the drama that follows them around and it's pathetic. And
(06:50):
I looked at this, and I looked at the battle
for the Governor's office, and I looked at the battle
for all this stuff, and I'm like, you know what,
they can't stop stabbing each other in the back, the
gun issue, right, just getting people together on issues that matter.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
I was like, you can't. I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
And I was like, well, if we're not going to
fight together, why fight? And I was like that, and
I know some of you guys might be like, Wow,
that's a talk show host saying something like that. I
can't believe it. And I'm I'm just telling you the
bare truth. I hope Colorado can be saved. But as
(07:30):
time goes on, you are letting California imports and Washington
State imports, and East Coast imports and Oregon State imports.
People that are coming from these states where they have
literally destroyed those states. They are coming here and they're
just they're trying to get away from the mess they made,
(07:52):
but they don't realize they're the.
Speaker 3 (07:53):
Reason the mess existed. And I'll give you another example.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
This was when I knew that we were on a trajectory,
I wasn't sure we could recover from when they when
they when they ran that when they start when they
decided to reintroduce wolves. And I remember going to the
Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, which by the way, is like the
best zoo in the world besides the San Diego Zoo.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
It's just freaking amazing.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
And they had these teenagers there who don't know their
head from the hole in the ground, and they're trying
to sell this wolf thing, and they they're they're pushing
a bunch of misinformation. And I love wolves, by the way,
I love wildlife. I love the environment. One of the
things I love about Colorado is the pristine open spaces.
But I knew that wolves were going to be a disaster.
(08:38):
I knew they were, and I knew that they were
going to be I knew the bill was going to
pass because it was done by quote unquote democracy, and
you had a bunch of like poodle and shit zoo owning,
purse dog owning Subaru drivers from Boulder that were going
to vote for something that was going to affect Colorado
ranchers on the western slopes, and they weren't going to
(09:00):
care what that effect was. And they were just say,
I'm better than you because I'm saving the planet. And
now the wolves are eating their shitsus and now they're like,
oh no, we got got It's a complete disaster. And
then they said and this happened a few years ago.
If you remember, because I covered this when I was
here on Kihu full time. I said, I told you
about the story. But they they did another referendum where
(09:24):
they were like, you know what, we need everybody to
have free lunch, and we're going to tax people who
make more than three hundred thousand dollars a year a
small percentage to pay for free lunch.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
And I warned you at the time.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I said, hey, they're not going to stop at this
small percentage, and they're not going to stop at three
hundred thousand.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
And I was right.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
They went and raised it already because they decided they
need more money for it. And I was like, what
that is not democracy. That's socialism. When you have when
you can take a majority of the people to vote
to take away something from a minority of the people
and they can't stop it.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
That's not democracy.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
That's socialism, which is what democra one democracy is. You
need a representative republic so that the mob can't just
come in and run rough shot over everybody. Right, it's
taxation without representation because the people who make over three
hundred thousand, there's no way that's a small percentage of
the population. There's no way they can actually defend themselves.
(10:18):
So that's not taxation with representation.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
And they did, and it was It's.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Been one thing after another, and so this article comes
out and it shows that on average, each Colorado resident
paid five thousand dollars in state sanctioned fees last year.
The report analyzed how fees have affected Colorado's economy. They
(10:45):
found that fee revenue has more than tripled crippled since
two thousand and eight. See, we got we got duped
by this. We saw when we came to Colorado. We
were like, oh, Tabor, we got the taxpayer bill. Rice,
they can't raise our taxes well without us voting on it.
Little did I know at the time, all they can
raise your taxes. All they have to do is call
(11:06):
it a fee. So, more than thirty years after Colorado
voters approved the taxpayer Bill of Rights, which is basically
whittled down to nothing now thanks to the socialists under
the Golden Dome, a growing share of state spending now
falls outside the voter approved limits intended to restrain government growth.
(11:27):
And here's the thing. You drive through Denver and look,
I've been all over the country. One of my favorite
places that go is Phoenix, Arizona. Not in the summer.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
The infrastructure there is ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
There are no potholes and there's traffic flow all day
long all over town.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
It's amazing because they have enough lanes.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
And I remember some years ago also when I was
here on KHW on a regular basis, there was a
story that s DOT had put out there statement like
our goal is climate change. Like literally, they were like,
we're not even worried about transportation anymore. We are the
Colorado Department of Transportation, but we're not even worried about that.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Our number one goal is to stop climate change.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
And so they put themselves in charge on elected bureaucrats
in charge of development rules and rights in communities around
the state, and so they became the choke point, and
it's a stated goal. They're like, we're not gonna We're
not gonna put more lanes on I twenty five. We're
not gonna we're not gonna build out the infrastructure so
that it handles the flow of traffic. We're actually gonna
(12:32):
constrict it. We're gonna make it more difficult. Because now
here's the next big thing they want to do.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
They want you to vote.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
To raise your taxes yet again, probably through fees to
pay for the front range rail system, which bike maybe
maybe maybe a half percent of the population will even use,
but the rest of the population will pay for it,
and that will be their excuse for not actually putting
extra lanes on the road. So traffic will still suck,
(13:02):
the drivers will still be horrible, the subarus will still
be going.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Too slow in the left hand lane and the express lane.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
But you'll be paying for some lefty Berkeley graduate who
decided to move to California Colorado because California is too
expensive to ride on the Front Range train from Colorado
Springs to Fort Collins. That's what you'll be paying for
if you don't get together, unify and stop this nonsense.
(13:32):
And that means you got to swallow a lot of
pride from the past squabbles and the past fights that
have broken out between those on the right and the Libertarians.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
And the Republicans.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Got to come together and go look for the sake
of the future of this great state. We got to
unify and fight something, because if we don't, the whole
thing becomes California only worse because we don't have a
Silicon Valley to stop what's happening here. California has gone
on longer than it should have because of Silicon Valley,
(14:05):
but they're about to end that because they're about to
pass a billionaire Stax and when they do that, Silicon
Valley will be completely gone. It'll move to Austin entirely,
or Florida it'll be silicon swamps. But we don't have
that to even back us up and prop us up
as long as California has been propped up. So gotta
(14:26):
get it together. Four six hundred ninety two dollars. And
when we continue, guess how much you pay every year
more than the average driver in America to repair your
car because Pothole Polis won't do his damn job and
fix the Colorado roads.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I'll give you that number when we continue.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Leland Conween for the Great Dan Caplis on the Dan
Caplis Show.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
So this is what you pay as a Colorado.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Resident, more than the average American driver because of the
roads that Pothole Polis has refused to fix. On average,
you spent about one thousand dollars eight hundred and ninety
one dollars a year extra.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
That's more than.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Everyone else pays because of the bad roads. I was
driving through Glenwood Canyon. It was last spring, not this year.
But the year before I had just bought some new
tires from my truck and they were like really good tires,
good off road tires. They're like three grand for the set.
Fortunately I bought the insurance on them too. But I'm
(15:34):
driving through Glenwood Canyon and I was trying that road
is pathetic. I know there's a lot of issues with
the engineering of it because of the fact that it
goes through Glenwood Canyon, But.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
I've seen other roads.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I mean, Arizona has a canyon very similar to Glenwood Canyon.
That's right when you cross on I fifteen, when you
cross that corner of that north west corner of Arizona
into Nevada, very similar to glen Canyon. Does not have
these problems, very similar climate, does not have these problems.
And it's just it's it's pathetically put together, and so
(16:11):
it's horrible. And I was trying to avoid some of
these horrible potholes to not knock my truck out of alignment,
and then there was construction debris on the side that
got left. I mean, it was ridiculous, and I hear
when I literally blew my tires, like blew it brand
spanking new tire, and I remember I'm sitting there and
(16:31):
it's like, as you know, if you've been through Glenwood Canyon,
you can't there's no place to go. I was fortunate
that I was just passing the on ramp to the
Bear Creek Rest area, which is the last for ten miles.
There's no other way to get off the road there,
so there's no shoulder for ten miles, and so I
was able to get over on that on ramp. But
(16:52):
the on ramp is at a hill at such an
angle that the ones at the bottom of the the
people at the bottom of the hill don't see what's
at the top, and they start accelerating super fast. And
so I'm sitting here, going I am not going to
try to change my tire with these vehicles flying past me.
So I called and this was really cool. Colorado State
(17:14):
Troopers are amazing. They called Colorado State Police and I
was like, Hey, I'm out here and I can't change
my tire because cars are flying by me. I don't
have any place else to go. I can't get anywhere else.
And they said, no problem, will be there, Like it
was like five minutes they got there. It was unbelievable.
How fast they got there. Colorado State Troopers amazing. So
(17:36):
they get there, trooper comes in, he turns his lights
on so that slows everybody down. And then the Sea
Dot comes in and they help slow everybody down.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
And then my towing insurance kicks in. They come and they.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
They get me set up so that I can get
the tire changed and all that kind of stuff, which
normally I changed my own tire, but in that situation,
was I going to do it? And me and the
troopers sat there and talked about guns. It's pretty awesome.
But yeah, that fortunately I had the insurance, but that
was that was all caused by the lack of maintenance
of roads by pothole polish that right there, So you're
paying like a grand you shouldn't. All right, one other fight,
(18:11):
we got to talk about SBOO three, the AR fifteen
law that's taking effects. We'll talk about that next time.
Leland Conway in for Dan Capitlis on The Dan Caplis Show.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
You're listening to the Dan Caplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Dan Capitalist on the Dan Caplis Show. Follow along on Instagram.
It's at Gavin Newsom's hair. Facebook is Leland, Conway and
x Is at Leland Show.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
So August one tomorrow, officially.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
The quasi AR fifteen band that the crazy nut jobs
in the Colorado Legislature passed will take effect now for
all intents and purposes. At actually took effect three days
ago because of the three day waiting period to purchase
a firearm in the state of Colorado. And so it's
been an absolute mad crap show for a long time
(19:12):
regarding this law. Now, I work in the firearms industry,
full disclosure, and I testified against this bill when it
was before the state legislature along with a lot of
other people in the industry, and it was actually one
thing that was a glorious unity because there was actually
a lot of unity when that took place in trying
to stop this nonsense. But one of the things that
(19:34):
concerns me about this bill, first of all, the given
excuse that they have for why they did it this way,
because originally they were trying to make it a fixed magazine.
You had to have a fixed magazine, so you couldn't
have an AR fifteen at all. Basically had to be
modified so badly that it wouldn't even really resemble an
AR fifteen.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
But how this.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Works is, in order to purchase from now on, if
you want to purchase a gas powered, semi automatic detachable
magazine rifle in the state of Colorado, you have to
fill out an application to make this purchase from the
state's Firearms a safety system, which will then get routed
to your local county sheriff, at which point they will
(20:19):
process the application and will do a background check on you,
which you have to do anyway to buy a gun.
Then you will pay the sheriff of fifty two dollars
fee plus whatever else. The fifty two dollars goes to
Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and the Sheriff's office will likely
charge you an additional fee on top of that. Then
they will review your application, and my understanding in this
(20:41):
review is that they can determine your eligibility based on
more than just a background check. That's my understanding of it,
which means it may not be a shall issue system
for AR fifteen's it could be a may issue. So
I'm in the scenarios in which I could see a
sheriff denying that would be your social media posts or something.
(21:03):
And so if you'd like, like say Boulder. They probably
are going to do everything they can to slow this
process down. If they can, then the Sheriff's office will
send you Once you get the eligibility card, you will
then be they will be checking to see whether or
not you need to take a four hour course or
(21:23):
a twelve hour course. And if you need to take
the twelve hour course, that will be because you've never
had hunter education, So you will have to take the
hunter education course and then you'll have to take an
additional four hour course. Now what's really ridiculous about this
is that they've specifically excluded the eight hour now in
Colorado concealed carry permit course from standing in as that
(21:49):
eight hour hunter education course. Now, I've had Colorado hunter education.
It's a fine class, there's nothing wrong with it, but
it doesn't it Most people don't use AR fifteen style
rifles to hunt, and in Colorado you can't have a
semi automatic with more than a five round magazine to
(22:10):
hunt anyway, so it's not you're not typically like the
typical AR fifteen, which is going to have AMMO that's
two two, three, five, five six. That is not typically
a hunting rifle. You might use it to stop a
varmot on your farm, but you're not hunting, you know,
meal deer or elk with a two two, three or
five five six. That's basically a glorified twenty two with
(22:32):
higher velocity is basically what it is. So it's not
the kind of rifle that you would use for hunting.
So this is one area that this is really dumb.
Then after you finish the course, you have to pass
a test, a hands on practical test of ninety percent
or better. And my understanding from someone that I was
talking to in the industry the other day, is that
if you make one mistake, like at all related to safety,
(22:57):
they'll fail you and you have to go through the
whole process again. And this these classes are going to
cost a lot of money because it's a lot of time.
It's an instructor's time for either eight or four or
twelve hours. So the goal here was always to put
a barrier that made it so expensive that nobody would
actually want to go through the process of buying an
(23:18):
AR fifteen. And in addition to that, it actually backfired
and this made national news. It backfired because they sold
more AR fifteens in the last two months in Colorado
than they've ever sold in Colorado before, because everybody went
out and bought one because they knew that on August
(23:38):
one they wouldn't be able to buy one without this course.
And so they literally put more AR fifteens in the
hands of people than they ever would have if they'd
just left us alone.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
And there was.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Statement by Tom Sullivan, who helped pass this bill, and
he was the sponsor of it. And look, I get it.
I understand he lost his son in a mass shooting.
And it's always like, look, I have empathy for that,
and I have sympathy for that, but your tragedy doesn't
(24:16):
give you a right to infringe on my rights. And
and and Sullivan. Sullivan was quoted in a local media
outlet just the last couple of days saying that this
was going to be this was going to create safety
for Colorado's and I am like, okay, so you mean
the mass shooters and the gang members that are shooting
(24:39):
each other with these types of rifles as well on
I two twenty five and Aurora, they're going to be like, oh,
you know what, never mind, I haven't had the hunter
safety class yet. I mean, come on, dude, Like what
are you this This argument is so asinine and and
I don't I don't want to insult people, and I
(25:02):
don't want to dehumanize people that I disagree with politically.
But I'm getting I've had it up to here with
the gun thing, I really have, which this was another
reason why I moved to Wyoming, because I was like, look,
if the government can have it, I can have it.
And there's two things I'm an absolutist on. One is
(25:23):
the Second Amendment and the other's the First Amendment. Like
I have my political beliefs and you have your political beliefs.
But at the end of the day, I am an
absolutist on our right to express our political beliefs whatever
they may be, even if they're offensive. And I am
an absolutist on my right to own anything the government has.
And I'm sorry, but if the government can have an
(25:44):
F fifteen, I should be able to have it too.
I Mean, the whole point is that we are the government.
They work for us, not the other way around. You
are not making Americans or Colorado and safer by limiting
their access to guns. Now, ar Fifteen's I'll be honest
with you, I do not use an AR fifteen for
home defense.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
I just don't. It's to me. It's to me it's a.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Shotgun or my let's just say it wouldn't be legal
in Colorado pistol that has way more than fifteen rounds
because of that stupid law. But that's neither here nor there.
It doesn't matter what I would use an AR fifteen for.
It matters that I can have it. It only matters
(26:26):
that I can have it. And the fact that you
don't want me to have it is completely irrelevant to
the right that I was given by God. That's the
thing that they don't understand. On the left. You were
not given the right to defend your life, your family,
your country, and your fellow neighbor from tyranny. You were
(26:47):
not given that right by the government. Tom Sullivan didn't
give you that right. Jared Poulis didn't give you that right.
Phil Weisner doesn't give you that right. For that matter,
Donald Trump doesn't give you that right. That right comes
from the creator who created us. And I'm going to
(27:08):
do this, and I've You've probably heard me say this before,
but I'll do it again because I think it's worth notating.
And I kind of wish I could have coffee with
Tom Sullivan because I want to tell him this to
his face, like, not in a mean way, like I mean,
you know, respectfully, I want to sit down and have
coffee with the guy and say, listen, man, let me
(27:29):
help you understand what the Second Amendment means and the context.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Of why it was passed. When it was passed.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
At the time that the Second Amendment came into being,
there were two factions in the American government, the Federalists
and the anti Federalists. And the Federalists were led by
Alexander Hamilton, and he felt like we should have a
strong centralized government, and Thomas Jefferson was on the other side,
and he said, no, we should have a decentralized confederacy,
(28:02):
like a loose conglomerate of states that govern themselves and
then just come together when we need national defense. Otherwise
we leave each other alone and we trade together.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
But that's it.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
And when the argument was being had, Hamilton's people said, yeah, well,
you know, we get it, but there's not going to
be well. Jefferson's people said, look, we can't have a
centralized government because it's going to devolve into tyranny, and
the Hamilton's people go, no, it's not gonna do it.
Come on, Thomas, that's dumb. It's not going to devolve
(28:37):
into tyranny because the people are going to be armed.
And the Jeffersonians said, of course, the people are going
to be armed, we know that, but we still don't
want to give the government that much power. So, in
other words, the only thing they agreed on was that
the people were going to be armed for the express purpose.
And this is what you had to understand when the
hamilton When the Hamiltonians said, of course, you know, it's
(28:59):
okay to have a statist government, to have a centralized government,
because the people will be armed. That will keep us
in check. You gotta understand the entire premise of the
conversation around the people being armed was tied to stopping tyranny,
and it was understood that the ability of men as
(29:22):
in human beings, to rise up against tyranny is sacrosanc
from our creator. Our founders understood this because they had
just gone through it. Is it is only a small
minded idiot who thinks.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Well, it's a militia. So what it's talking about is
we didn't have a military at the time. Shut the
hell up. You don't understand how this country was founded.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
These guys that are arguing over this are not arguing
over whether you should be armed, because they under they
had all just put their necks on the line, like literally,
had they failed, they would have all been executed by hanging.
Had they failed, they would have all lost everything. They
had just taken up arms and risen up against tyranny.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
As a matter of.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Fact, the whole battle started when they tried to take
our cannons away, which Joe Biden, President Potato thought we
couldn't have. So, in other words, the context of the
time was very clear that it was about people being
able to protect themselves from an unruly, overly tyrannical government.
(30:29):
And so it doesn't really matter, This is my point.
It doesn't really matter what your opinion is on guns.
It doesn't matter because the Second Amendment is absolute. It's
an amendment in the Bill of Rights because our founders
understood that was something they weren't allowed to touch. That's
(30:49):
why it's in there. They're not allowed to touch your
freedom of religion, which Colorado has trampled all over. They
are not allowed to touch your freedom of expression, which
Colorado has trampled all over over see the cakes.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
They are not.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Allowed to trample on your right to press or gathering together.
And they are not allowed to trample on your right
to defend yourself from criminals or tyrants.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
They are not allowed.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
And it literally is written into the constitutional documents.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
This isn't a.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Well, you know, we'll go part way on this. No,
that's not the kind that It's not that kind of right.
It's the kind of right that's written down hardcore in stone,
can't be moved. This is like when you try to
argue against the Second Amendment. It's like trying to argue
with God about one of the Ten Commandments. No, they're
in there, and they're on stone on purpose. So I
(31:47):
don't know what's going to happen with this. It's obviously egregious.
The fear that I have is about this current Supreme
Court makeup. I don't think this current Well, I'll tell
you what. I'll explain this. Here's what I we'll talk
about the prediction of where this goes when we continue.
But the only solution I think to this is maybe
(32:07):
one you might not want to hear. We'll discuss that
coming up when we continue. Leland Conway is sitting in
for Dan Kaplis on The Dankpla Show.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
And now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
So, the solution and what will be the outcome with
this AR fifteen bill here in Colorado Number one. I
don't know that it'll get overturned by the Supreme Court.
And here's my fear. The current makeup of the court
is pro gun ish. But what they're not going to
stand for is an outright ban on AR Fifteen's what
they will be okay with is the additional training, and
(32:44):
it's going to be irregardless of actually it's not a word,
but it's regardless of the fact that the training is
in place not actually to train people about firearms, but
rather to essentially put a monetary block so that you
have fewer people that can afford an AIR fifteen. Meanwhile,
criminals continue to get them through the black market, and
(33:06):
it doesn't solve any problems that way. So here's the solution,
and this I believe is the real only And look, look,
I hope that the Supreme Court overturns it. I just
don't think that we should bank that they will. This
particular Supreme Court is a little bit weird. They're a
little bit unpredictable. They are pro gun to an extent,
(33:26):
but not to the extent that I would like them
to be.
Speaker 3 (33:28):
So that's up in the air.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
The most surefire solution to this is changed the law,
and that means that we've got to do a better
job of recruiting people to the Second Amendment. It doesn't
have you don't have to be Republican, you don't have
to be libertarian. You know, Democrats can have guns too.
But we've got to help people understand the reason why
(33:53):
it's important. And it's not just for hunting. It's not
just for target or sports shooting. It's for the protection
against criminals and tyranny. That's what it is for. And
we've got to do a better job of educating people
on that. And we've got to fire some of these
people under the dome. There's really no other way around it.
It has to be done. And so that means unifying,
(34:18):
you know, getting people together, independents, libertarians, Republicans, putting a
side differences and recognizing that the rights that we have
as human beings supersedes our petty differences politically and supersedes
just about everything else, and the right to express ourselves religiously, politically, journalistically,
(34:43):
and the right to protect ourselves. That's all sacro sanct
that's why it's written down. I mean, if you had
a ten Commandments of human rights, it's the American Bill
of Rights. And there isn't really any two ways about that. Yeah,
I mean, I'm not super hopeful. I feel for the
(35:05):
people in Colorado that still believe in the Second Amendment.
I know it's going to be a tough road convince
these people otherwise, and I'll help every bit I can
from just north of the border. I promise you that,
because I still love the state. Hey, it's been an
honor to set in for Dan Caplis today. I hope
you enjoyed it. Love to do it again sometime. Always
(35:26):
love Colorado, Always love you. Thanks for listening Dan Capla's show.
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