March 27, 2025 • 20 mins
DID THE DEMS JUST PASS ANOTHER UNCONSTITUTIONAL GUN BILL? I've got Dave Kopel from the Independence Institute on to discuss at 1 today, as he is the guy who studies this stuff all day long. By the way, Dave Kopel is Research Director of the Independence Institute; an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, in Washington; and a Senior Fellow at the University of Wyoming College of Law Firearms Research Center. His website is davekopel.org. He writes frequent for the Volokh Conspiracy law blog, hosted by Reason magazine. So he knows what he's talking about.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've talked pretty extensively about SB three, and now it
has passed, it has still not become law. The governor
has the option to either sign it, veto it, or
allow it to go into law without signature. But I
thought I would bring in a smarty Pants about gun
laws to find out if this thing is even constitutional
and joining me now the second amendment. Smarty Pants from
(00:22):
the Independence Institute.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
He's Dave Copele. Hey, Dave, how you doing.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I'm good? How about you?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I'm doing fantastic. I've been waiting for this bill to
be done because in my mind there was no doubt
that it was going to pass. So I've been waiting
to see how it was going to turn out. And
I'm assuming that you have had a chance to dive
in and look and see what finally came out of
the legislature.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Well, it's not final yet. This it was introduced in
the Senate, past the Senate in one form, then went
over to the House, was amended in the House to
be different from the Cenate form. So now it has
to go back to the Senate, and the Senate can
concur with the House amendments or they can reject them.
(01:09):
And just say screw you. House, either pass it our
way or forget it, or what's most likely, they will
vote for it to have a conference committee. And a
conference committee is since legislators three from each house, typically
two from the majority party one from the minority party,
(01:30):
so you'd have a four to two anti gun conference committee.
But that is still going forward. And then once the
conference committee comes out with a report of what however
to resolve the differences between House and Senate, then at
that point the bill goes to the governor, as you said,
(01:51):
to either sign it or vetail it or let it
become all without his signature.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So what are the big differences between the Senate and
the House right now?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
The House version is even more elaborate, and it moves
the licensing system which is currently only for some guns
in the bill that will certainly be over time expanded
to all guns. It creates a licensing system to be
(02:21):
run by the Colorado Department of Parks and Wildlife.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Two And okay, wait a minute, so that is in
which in which house has that portion in it?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
That's pretty significant.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I mean, that's not that was putting it on the
House side. And you have to understand about this thing
in general, that this is by people who hate guns,
hate gun owners, and what they the things they say
in favor of the bill are almost entirely lies. So
you had testimony in the House, for example, by people saying, oh,
(02:59):
we need this bill bill because of the murders at
Virginia Tech, the college, the college, and they're the criminal
used guns that don't appear to be covered by this bill.
And the other thing is supposedly this bill is to
stop mass shootings purportedly, but that's a lie too, you know. Now,
(03:25):
Originally this was a gun ban bill that would ban
all future sales. Under pressure from Governor Polus who the
bill was turned into a very complicated and severe licensing system,
and the core of the system is to require lots
of hours of training. So if this bill works, mass
(03:49):
shooters are going to be better trained.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Great, that sounds like that's going to be really helpful.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yes, this is a bill designed by the text to
make mass shooters more competent. And that's actually quite a
dangerous thing because some past shooters are not. Like the
guy who attacked the Aurora movie theater in twenty twelve,
(04:18):
there were a lot of lives saved because a he
used a one hundred round drum magazine and you know
which the it's like a coil as the ammunition moves
through that circular drum. And at the current state of technology,
magazines of that size jam all the time, and his did.
(04:44):
And so then after that jammed up, which gave people
and a time to flee while he cleared the jam.
He then started using thirty round magazines in his rifle,
except instead of putting thirty rounds in, he had overload
to them by putting in thirty two rounds, which if
you go to a firearms safety class, I'll tell you
(05:06):
don't do it. Yeah, if you have real powerful thumbs,
you can jam an extra round or two into the
magazine by further compressing the spring that sits at the
bottom of the magazine. But if you do that, you
increase the chance of the magazine malfunctioning, which it did
in this case. So we are now going to have
(05:27):
in Colorado some of the most competent, well trained mass shooters.
That's what this bill leads to.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
My frustration here is that in my view, this is
pretty much the closest thing to a poll tax on
firearms that i've ever seen. I mean, it's one thing
to say, look, you have to pay for a concealed
carry permit, you know, which is a whole different horse
of another color for this conversation. But this is going
to create a situation where people who may live in
(05:56):
a high crime neighborhood and they're living in poverty are
not going to be able to afford either time or
money investment to do all this stuff. And now we've
essentially created an entire class of people that, if they
want to protect themselves, are going to become lawbreakers.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Well that's the point. The gun ban lobbies are opposed
on moral grounds to self defense by people who don't
work for the government. Their view is, if you want
protection from somebody who's attacking you violently, you call the
police and they'll send a government employee over to take
(06:31):
care of it for you, hopefully after they arrive, you know,
by the typical response time for nine to one one
highest level life you know, life in danger right now
type calls. It varies around the country, but it's seven
to twelve minutes in general. Obviously sometimes longer in catastrophic
(06:53):
situations where the police take a very long time. So yeah,
if the police show up eight minutes after some guy
breaks into your house and starts attacking you and you're
still alive, well that's nice. But the point is they don't.
They are morally opposed to self defense. They think it's disorderly.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Is this bill going to be constitutionalist that comes out
with all these requirements, I mean, which surely it's going
to be challenged.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Yes, And that's a channel. Well, I'll give you the
argument on each side. On the one hand, the current
controlling president is the Supreme Court's decision in New York
State Rifle and Pistol Association Versus Bruin, which held said
(07:42):
that New York can't deny carry permits to the general public.
You know, the New York said, will only give you
a carry permit if you have a special need that's
distinct from the rest of the general public. And by
six to three the Supreme Court said, you can't do
that for a constitutional right. You know, whatever constitutional right is,
(08:02):
it is not something that is only for special people
as determined by the government.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
And isn't there a similar provision in this bill though,
that you have to be certified as having the right
kind of course, by a local sheriff or what am
I thinking of?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Well, now's so. On the one hand, no, and Bruin
also said we you should decide cases based on the
original the text and original meaning of the Second Amendment,
and the closer you get in time to the enactment
of the Second Amendment in seventeen ninety one, the more
any particular practice shows what the original meaning is. And
something that was enacted after nineteen hundred doesn't give you
(08:40):
any evidence about original meaning. And up to nineteen hundred,
there's no licensing system of this type anywhere for American
citizens with full constitutional rights, So that's the argument why
it's unconstitutional. On the other hand, in the Bruin case,
they there is footnote nine, which says, we don't mean
(09:03):
to call in doubt the const constitutionality of shall issue
licensing systems like Colorado adopted for concealed carry in two
thousand and one, which is, you know, you have to
you have to fill out a form, you pay a
fee in some states, including Colorado, have have some training,
(09:27):
and the court said that's okay. Now there's a contradiction
between them saying that's okay in footnote nine versus their
more general rule of just stick with original meaning and
original practices. But courts in general are taking footnote nine
as meaning that licensing systems for concealed carry certainly are
(09:52):
okay as long as they comply with the Supreme Court's
rule that you can't have lengthy wait times or exorbitant feats,
So they have.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
To be reasonable to the court standard. Without a clearly
defined court standard.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Exactly. You know, so you've you've got counties in California
that are taking over a year cause that's concealed carry permits.
That seems like a violation of Bruin, although even in
California the courts have been they've taken some baby steps
on addressing that, but not not very much. And the
fiends how much will they be who knows. But back
(10:27):
to your point about that this this is designed and intended.
I mean, it's an example of systemic discrimination against poor people,
which are who are disproportionately people of color. Because you
got to you gotta a here's the steps you got
to go. If you want to concealed carry permit, You
(10:52):
find a class, take the class, which can be done
in one day, and then you go and part of
that class and some of the class can be online,
not the whole thing. Then you take your certificate from
the class, You go to the sheriff's office, you fill
out a form, you get fingerprinted, they take a picture,
(11:13):
and then several weeks later you get your permit. And
they could have done something like if the objective were
moderate gun control, they could have done a similar system
like that for licensing to possess a firearm or to
buy a firearm. But instead, first you go to some
(11:37):
third party vendor who conducts background checks, and you pay
that third party vendor to conduct a background check. Then
so it's timeline for morek once once you get that done,
you get your certificate, go to the Sheriff's office. Sheriff's office,
You fill out a form from the sheriff's office. Then
(11:59):
the sheriff processes that, charges you a fee. Then the
sheriff sends to Colorado Parks and Wildlife a record that
you were eligible to take a safety class UH to
acquire one of these firearms after and then then you oh,
(12:21):
so you've you've already got multiple steps, three steps before
you can even take the class. As opposed with a
concealed handgunctory permit, you just you just take the class.
Then after you've passed, then you're The classes are either
twelve hours, which have to be done completely in person
(12:45):
on two separate days. You know. Now, you know, imagine
you're a single mom who's working hard, you know, to
provide for your children and uh, you know, doesn't have
all this time to take off from work or to
leave for children alone, or you know, maybe the money
(13:05):
to pay for a babysitter. Then you take the twelve
hour class for whatever that costs. Or if you've had
a hundred safety class, which I have, which is a
very long class and that's typically taught in like eight evenings,
although happily you can take in Colorado, you can take
much of that online except for a final half day
(13:28):
session which has to be in person. And if you've
taken the if you've already got hunter safety, which is
sort of not typical for a poor person living in
five points.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, then.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
If you've got you've already got Hunter safety, you can
take a four hour class. If you don't have a
Hunter Safety you have to take a twelve hour You
take the twelve hour class. Then after you've done that,
you get a permit that allows you for the next
five years to purchase the firearms that are covered in
the bill. But what if you took the But it
(14:06):
gets worse. If you took the A class more than
five years ago, that often doesn't count, so you've got
to go back and take more class.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
So wait a minute, what if you've taken a concealed
carry class? That doesn't count for anything. And this person
on the text line just asked a really really good question, Mandy,
what will Parks and Wildlife teach me about guns that
twenty four years in the army with multiple deployments hasn't
already taught me?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Probably nothing, Well, I guess from the sponsor's point of view,
they would teach you about Colorado specific laws, so you
would have, for example, among the mandatory things they have
to teach you about in the classes are Colorado's red
flag laws and things like that. But again, you don't
(14:59):
need twelve hours no teach that. And by the way,
in contrast, the Concealed Carry Act was passed in two
thousand and one bipartisan and negotiated with the sheriffs who
were still very much see themselves as protectors of the people,
(15:20):
including their constitutional rights, including the Second Amendment, and the
legislators during the hearings were complaining about this problem. Specifically
said that, you know, it's a problem in Colorado that
so many sheriffs think of themselves as defenders of the
people's Second Amendment rights. In two thousand and one Act, yes,
(15:43):
your military experience could count for the required training.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
What somebody just asked this, do any of these new
bills change something, change anything for someone who already has
a concealed carry permit or are we grandfathered?
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Well, this bill doesn't affect your right to carry.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Okay, So it's just being able to buy a firearm,
which is even worse.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Dave, what is it going to do to firearm stores?
Speaker 3 (16:09):
It's about the right to buy currently, it's about the
right to buy some firearms. There's no question that if
this becomes law, the bigots and haters will be back
to expand this step by step to eventually cover all firearms,
(16:30):
which is and the point is to make it as
difficult as they can under political circumstances for people to
acquire farms, because they think farms are evil and gun
owners are evil.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Dave, This legislature baffles me because, at the same time,
they're doing all this to further restrict the ability of
legal gun owners, who a vast majority of whom, especially
concealed carry permit holders, are never going to commit a crime.
And at the same time, they're trying to lower the
penalties if someone does doesn't hit anyone in a drive
by shooting, so they can get out earlier and not
(17:04):
face the same penalties. And I'm thinking to myself, they're
truly empowering the criminals here. They're disarming the people and
empowering the criminals. I don't understand why they don't see that.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Because our well to state what they would say if
you put some sodium pentathal in them and made them
tell the truth that America is founded on white supremacy,
and capitalism is inherent and white is inherently white supremacist.
America exists on stolen land. The whole system is illegitimate,
(17:35):
and therefore people who commit crimes are more victims of
the system. They're the marginalized. The people have been mistreated
for so long, and everybody else is to some extent
complicit in the systemic oppression that makes people commit crimes. So,
as you said, if you perpetrate a drive by shooting
(17:58):
and end up hitting somebody's spinal column and severing it
so they're in a wheelchair for the rest of their life. You,
under current law can be charged with attempted murder, which
carries a penalty just one step below actually completing a murder. Right,
(18:18):
but this would like move it way down, and so
it would be it would make it a significantly lesser
penalty for attempting to kill somebody if you don't succeed.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Uh, it's we're living in crazy times. I'm talking with
Dave Koppol and if you just joined us, he was
giving the litany of reasons why Dave just I'm sure
has heard those litany of reasons. That's not his belief
system to I don't want people to be confused about
why I let this.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Left wing wackle on the show.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Dave's work can be seen and read at complete Colorado
dot com. He is part of the amazing team at
the Independence Institute.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Dave good to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Let's regroup when this thing finally passes or whatever. And
and do you think the governor's going to sign this,
because we all know the governor has presidential aspirations if
he signs it.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
It could be a huge problem.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
It's less of a problem for him that he armed with.
Governor Polus in his heart does not hate gun owners.
He would be perfectly happy to leave them alone. And
if we didn't have gun control bill, he wouldn't be
pushing the legislature to enact gun control bills. But the
fact is, the billionaire lobbies, you know Michael Bloomberg, who
(19:32):
believe me, his security guards don't follow the gun laws
that applied to everybody else because they're retired in New
York City Police. The governor is timid and submissive to
the to the hate groups in the legislature because they
have a lot of political power. You know, Bloomberg put
(19:52):
in a million dollars in the last election just for
U Democratic Senator Tom Sullivan who's the sponsor of this bill,
and the governor got the bill changed from a ban
which would have allowed people to keep their existing guns
but no more sales to this oppressive licensing system. So
(20:18):
I think in his view, he's threaded the needle. Is
he can run for president and say the Democratic primaries, oh,
I did something about so called assault weapons. But then
in the general election he can say Oh, look what
a moderate fellow I am. They wanted a ban and
I said, no, we just have to make it a
licensing treptom that poor people can't comply with.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
I hate that. I think you're right, Dave. I'm out
of town. I mean I'm out of time. Dave Koppol
from the Independence Institute, I appreciate your time today.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Thank you very much.
We've talked pretty extensively about SB three, and now it
has passed, it has still not become law. The governor
has the option to either sign it, veto it, or
allow it to go into law without signature. But I
thought I would bring in a smarty Pants about gun
laws to find out if this thing is even constitutional
and joining me now the second amendment. Smarty Pants from
(00:22):
the Independence Institute.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
He's Dave Copele. Hey, Dave, how you doing.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
I'm good? How about you?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
I'm doing fantastic. I've been waiting for this bill to
be done because in my mind there was no doubt
that it was going to pass. So I've been waiting
to see how it was going to turn out. And
I'm assuming that you have had a chance to dive
in and look and see what finally came out of
the legislature.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Well, it's not final yet. This it was introduced in
the Senate, past the Senate in one form, then went
over to the House, was amended in the House to
be different from the Cenate form. So now it has
to go back to the Senate, and the Senate can
concur with the House amendments or they can reject them.
(01:09):
And just say screw you. House, either pass it our
way or forget it, or what's most likely, they will
vote for it to have a conference committee. And a
conference committee is since legislators three from each house, typically
two from the majority party one from the minority party,
(01:30):
so you'd have a four to two anti gun conference committee.
But that is still going forward. And then once the
conference committee comes out with a report of what however
to resolve the differences between House and Senate, then at
that point the bill goes to the governor, as you said,
(01:51):
to either sign it or vetail it or let it
become all without his signature.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So what are the big differences between the Senate and
the House right now?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
The House version is even more elaborate, and it moves
the licensing system which is currently only for some guns
in the bill that will certainly be over time expanded
to all guns. It creates a licensing system to be
(02:21):
run by the Colorado Department of Parks and Wildlife.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Two And okay, wait a minute, so that is in
which in which house has that portion in it?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
That's pretty significant.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I mean, that's not that was putting it on the
House side. And you have to understand about this thing
in general, that this is by people who hate guns,
hate gun owners, and what they the things they say
in favor of the bill are almost entirely lies. So
you had testimony in the House, for example, by people saying, oh,
(02:59):
we need this bill bill because of the murders at
Virginia Tech, the college, the college, and they're the criminal
used guns that don't appear to be covered by this bill.
And the other thing is supposedly this bill is to
stop mass shootings purportedly, but that's a lie too, you know. Now,
(03:25):
Originally this was a gun ban bill that would ban
all future sales. Under pressure from Governor Polus who the
bill was turned into a very complicated and severe licensing system,
and the core of the system is to require lots
of hours of training. So if this bill works, mass
(03:49):
shooters are going to be better trained.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Great, that sounds like that's going to be really helpful.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yes, this is a bill designed by the text to
make mass shooters more competent. And that's actually quite a
dangerous thing because some past shooters are not. Like the
guy who attacked the Aurora movie theater in twenty twelve,
(04:18):
there were a lot of lives saved because a he
used a one hundred round drum magazine and you know
which the it's like a coil as the ammunition moves
through that circular drum. And at the current state of technology,
magazines of that size jam all the time, and his did.
(04:44):
And so then after that jammed up, which gave people
and a time to flee while he cleared the jam.
He then started using thirty round magazines in his rifle,
except instead of putting thirty rounds in, he had overload
to them by putting in thirty two rounds, which if
you go to a firearms safety class, I'll tell you
(05:06):
don't do it. Yeah, if you have real powerful thumbs,
you can jam an extra round or two into the
magazine by further compressing the spring that sits at the
bottom of the magazine. But if you do that, you
increase the chance of the magazine malfunctioning, which it did
in this case. So we are now going to have
(05:27):
in Colorado some of the most competent, well trained mass shooters.
That's what this bill leads to.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
My frustration here is that in my view, this is
pretty much the closest thing to a poll tax on
firearms that i've ever seen. I mean, it's one thing
to say, look, you have to pay for a concealed
carry permit, you know, which is a whole different horse
of another color for this conversation. But this is going
to create a situation where people who may live in
(05:56):
a high crime neighborhood and they're living in poverty are
not going to be able to afford either time or
money investment to do all this stuff. And now we've
essentially created an entire class of people that, if they
want to protect themselves, are going to become lawbreakers.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Well that's the point. The gun ban lobbies are opposed
on moral grounds to self defense by people who don't
work for the government. Their view is, if you want
protection from somebody who's attacking you violently, you call the
police and they'll send a government employee over to take
(06:31):
care of it for you, hopefully after they arrive, you know,
by the typical response time for nine to one one
highest level life you know, life in danger right now
type calls. It varies around the country, but it's seven
to twelve minutes in general. Obviously sometimes longer in catastrophic
(06:53):
situations where the police take a very long time. So yeah,
if the police show up eight minutes after some guy
breaks into your house and starts attacking you and you're
still alive, well that's nice. But the point is they don't.
They are morally opposed to self defense. They think it's disorderly.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Is this bill going to be constitutionalist that comes out
with all these requirements, I mean, which surely it's going
to be challenged.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Yes, And that's a channel. Well, I'll give you the
argument on each side. On the one hand, the current
controlling president is the Supreme Court's decision in New York
State Rifle and Pistol Association Versus Bruin, which held said
(07:42):
that New York can't deny carry permits to the general public.
You know, the New York said, will only give you
a carry permit if you have a special need that's
distinct from the rest of the general public. And by
six to three the Supreme Court said, you can't do
that for a constitutional right. You know, whatever constitutional right is,
(08:02):
it is not something that is only for special people
as determined by the government.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
And isn't there a similar provision in this bill though,
that you have to be certified as having the right
kind of course, by a local sheriff or what am
I thinking of?
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Well, now's so. On the one hand, no, and Bruin
also said we you should decide cases based on the
original the text and original meaning of the Second Amendment,
and the closer you get in time to the enactment
of the Second Amendment in seventeen ninety one, the more
any particular practice shows what the original meaning is. And
something that was enacted after nineteen hundred doesn't give you
(08:40):
any evidence about original meaning. And up to nineteen hundred,
there's no licensing system of this type anywhere for American
citizens with full constitutional rights, So that's the argument why
it's unconstitutional. On the other hand, in the Bruin case,
they there is footnote nine, which says, we don't mean
(09:03):
to call in doubt the const constitutionality of shall issue
licensing systems like Colorado adopted for concealed carry in two
thousand and one, which is, you know, you have to
you have to fill out a form, you pay a
fee in some states, including Colorado, have have some training,
(09:27):
and the court said that's okay. Now there's a contradiction
between them saying that's okay in footnote nine versus their
more general rule of just stick with original meaning and
original practices. But courts in general are taking footnote nine
as meaning that licensing systems for concealed carry certainly are
(09:52):
okay as long as they comply with the Supreme Court's
rule that you can't have lengthy wait times or exorbitant feats,
So they have.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
To be reasonable to the court standard. Without a clearly
defined court standard.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Exactly. You know, so you've you've got counties in California
that are taking over a year cause that's concealed carry permits.
That seems like a violation of Bruin, although even in
California the courts have been they've taken some baby steps
on addressing that, but not not very much. And the
fiends how much will they be who knows. But back
(10:27):
to your point about that this this is designed and intended.
I mean, it's an example of systemic discrimination against poor people,
which are who are disproportionately people of color. Because you
got to you gotta a here's the steps you got
to go. If you want to concealed carry permit, You
(10:52):
find a class, take the class, which can be done
in one day, and then you go and part of
that class and some of the class can be online,
not the whole thing. Then you take your certificate from
the class, You go to the sheriff's office, you fill
out a form, you get fingerprinted, they take a picture,
(11:13):
and then several weeks later you get your permit. And
they could have done something like if the objective were
moderate gun control, they could have done a similar system
like that for licensing to possess a firearm or to
buy a firearm. But instead, first you go to some
(11:37):
third party vendor who conducts background checks, and you pay
that third party vendor to conduct a background check. Then
so it's timeline for morek once once you get that done,
you get your certificate, go to the Sheriff's office. Sheriff's office,
You fill out a form from the sheriff's office. Then
(11:59):
the sheriff processes that, charges you a fee. Then the
sheriff sends to Colorado Parks and Wildlife a record that
you were eligible to take a safety class UH to
acquire one of these firearms after and then then you oh,
(12:21):
so you've you've already got multiple steps, three steps before
you can even take the class. As opposed with a
concealed handgunctory permit, you just you just take the class.
Then after you've passed, then you're The classes are either
twelve hours, which have to be done completely in person
(12:45):
on two separate days. You know. Now, you know, imagine
you're a single mom who's working hard, you know, to
provide for your children and uh, you know, doesn't have
all this time to take off from work or to
leave for children alone, or you know, maybe the money
(13:05):
to pay for a babysitter. Then you take the twelve
hour class for whatever that costs. Or if you've had
a hundred safety class, which I have, which is a
very long class and that's typically taught in like eight evenings,
although happily you can take in Colorado, you can take
much of that online except for a final half day
(13:28):
session which has to be in person. And if you've
taken the if you've already got hunter safety, which is
sort of not typical for a poor person living in
five points.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Yeah, then.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
If you've got you've already got Hunter safety, you can
take a four hour class. If you don't have a
Hunter Safety you have to take a twelve hour You
take the twelve hour class. Then after you've done that,
you get a permit that allows you for the next
five years to purchase the firearms that are covered in
the bill. But what if you took the But it
(14:06):
gets worse. If you took the A class more than
five years ago, that often doesn't count, so you've got
to go back and take more class.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
So wait a minute, what if you've taken a concealed
carry class? That doesn't count for anything. And this person
on the text line just asked a really really good question, Mandy,
what will Parks and Wildlife teach me about guns that
twenty four years in the army with multiple deployments hasn't
already taught me?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Probably nothing, Well, I guess from the sponsor's point of view,
they would teach you about Colorado specific laws, so you
would have, for example, among the mandatory things they have
to teach you about in the classes are Colorado's red
flag laws and things like that. But again, you don't
(14:59):
need twelve hours no teach that. And by the way,
in contrast, the Concealed Carry Act was passed in two
thousand and one bipartisan and negotiated with the sheriffs who
were still very much see themselves as protectors of the people,
(15:20):
including their constitutional rights, including the Second Amendment, and the
legislators during the hearings were complaining about this problem. Specifically
said that, you know, it's a problem in Colorado that
so many sheriffs think of themselves as defenders of the
people's Second Amendment rights. In two thousand and one Act, yes,
(15:43):
your military experience could count for the required training.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
What somebody just asked this, do any of these new
bills change something, change anything for someone who already has
a concealed carry permit or are we grandfathered?
Speaker 3 (15:59):
Well, this bill doesn't affect your right to carry.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Okay, So it's just being able to buy a firearm,
which is even worse.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Dave, what is it going to do to firearm stores?
Speaker 3 (16:09):
It's about the right to buy currently, it's about the
right to buy some firearms. There's no question that if
this becomes law, the bigots and haters will be back
to expand this step by step to eventually cover all firearms,
(16:30):
which is and the point is to make it as
difficult as they can under political circumstances for people to
acquire farms, because they think farms are evil and gun
owners are evil.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Dave, This legislature baffles me because, at the same time,
they're doing all this to further restrict the ability of
legal gun owners, who a vast majority of whom, especially
concealed carry permit holders, are never going to commit a crime.
And at the same time, they're trying to lower the
penalties if someone does doesn't hit anyone in a drive
by shooting, so they can get out earlier and not
(17:04):
face the same penalties. And I'm thinking to myself, they're
truly empowering the criminals here. They're disarming the people and
empowering the criminals. I don't understand why they don't see that.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Because our well to state what they would say if
you put some sodium pentathal in them and made them
tell the truth that America is founded on white supremacy,
and capitalism is inherent and white is inherently white supremacist.
America exists on stolen land. The whole system is illegitimate,
(17:35):
and therefore people who commit crimes are more victims of
the system. They're the marginalized. The people have been mistreated
for so long, and everybody else is to some extent
complicit in the systemic oppression that makes people commit crimes. So,
as you said, if you perpetrate a drive by shooting
(17:58):
and end up hitting somebody's spinal column and severing it
so they're in a wheelchair for the rest of their life. You,
under current law can be charged with attempted murder, which
carries a penalty just one step below actually completing a murder. Right,
(18:18):
but this would like move it way down, and so
it would be it would make it a significantly lesser
penalty for attempting to kill somebody if you don't succeed.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Uh, it's we're living in crazy times. I'm talking with
Dave Koppol and if you just joined us, he was
giving the litany of reasons why Dave just I'm sure
has heard those litany of reasons. That's not his belief
system to I don't want people to be confused about
why I let this.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Left wing wackle on the show.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Dave's work can be seen and read at complete Colorado
dot com. He is part of the amazing team at
the Independence Institute.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
Dave good to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Let's regroup when this thing finally passes or whatever. And
and do you think the governor's going to sign this,
because we all know the governor has presidential aspirations if
he signs it.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
It could be a huge problem.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
It's less of a problem for him that he armed with.
Governor Polus in his heart does not hate gun owners.
He would be perfectly happy to leave them alone. And
if we didn't have gun control bill, he wouldn't be
pushing the legislature to enact gun control bills. But the
fact is, the billionaire lobbies, you know Michael Bloomberg, who
(19:32):
believe me, his security guards don't follow the gun laws
that applied to everybody else because they're retired in New
York City Police. The governor is timid and submissive to
the to the hate groups in the legislature because they
have a lot of political power. You know, Bloomberg put
(19:52):
in a million dollars in the last election just for
U Democratic Senator Tom Sullivan who's the sponsor of this bill,
and the governor got the bill changed from a ban
which would have allowed people to keep their existing guns
but no more sales to this oppressive licensing system. So
(20:18):
I think in his view, he's threaded the needle. Is
he can run for president and say the Democratic primaries, oh,
I did something about so called assault weapons. But then
in the general election he can say Oh, look what
a moderate fellow I am. They wanted a ban and
I said, no, we just have to make it a
licensing treptom that poor people can't comply with.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
I hate that. I think you're right, Dave. I'm out
of town. I mean I'm out of time. Dave Koppol
from the Independence Institute, I appreciate your time today.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Thank you very much.
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