Transcription
We don't want all your guns, just the assault weapons. Mr. and Mrs. America, turn them all in. I would have done it to prevent people who should not have guns from getting them. I would institute a national buyback program today.
I'm going to show you why every person I just showed you is a straight-up liar when it comes to gun control and their ultimate goal. Because Colorado just paved the way; they just showed us exactly what they want to do. They almost just passed the biggest form of gun control that the United States has ever seen. But at the last minute, this happened. That's what we're going to talk about as we look at the Colorado semi-auto gun ban: how it came about, how did we get to this point? What stopped it kind of in its tracks? But then, what did they add to it that made it almost worse than the first version? We're going to cover all this, and this is very important because it's not some far-away world. This is not another country where you're like, "huh, oh my God, yeah, I expect that." This is right here in the US. And even though Colorado isn't the first state they tried, they really tried to be the first state to pass some of the biggest [ __ ] control bills ever seen. They straight up just tried a Hail Mary, and they almost succeeded at the last minute.
If you're in Colorado or you're in other restrictive states, really restrictive states, let me know how this has affected you and your gun ownership. Has it actually even caused some of you guys to move out of those states and come to freer ones? Leave your opinions down below and let me know how you feel about us being this close to having an all-out gun ban. Let's go and jump right in now.
When I'm looking at these states, they always try to outdo one another when it comes to gun control, right? Your Illinoises, and then your New Yorks, and your New Jerseys, and your Californias, right? They're always trying to one-up the other, and Colorado almost just shot straight to the top. Because what they proposed was an all-out semi-auto gun ban. But we're not just talking about so-called assault rifles; we're talking about all guns: semi-auto shotguns, pistols, and rifles, with the exclusion of just a few: your M1 carbine, your M1As, your Ruger Mini 30s and Mini 14s. Which clearly shows how little they actually know about firearms. Let's just be honest, those are some of the historical guns that they just said, "ah, no, those aren't dangerous, those are fine," but all these others got to go.
The first version of this bill actually had that, and it had enough support to actually get passed through the Senate. This wasn't one of those things where they just kind of draft a bill. And sometimes I feel like this with every single party, right? They look at when they're going to come up for their next election: how can I cater to my constituents to at least show them that, "hey, I'm doing something, I'm trying to do something"? But in the end, they really know it's never going to pass, right? Both sides do that. It is what it is. Term limits put them in place, boom, you end a lot of that stuff. Side mission there, though. Regardless, this is one that actually could have gone just straight through.
Now I want to tell you how it got stopped in its tracks and the provision that makes this even worse. But let me tell you what Colorado—inss, Colorado inss—hopefully I'm saying that right—have to deal with going forward if you want to buy a semi-auto. So essentially, they put in place a permit-to-purchase program. Okay, this is not the first state to do this, but essentially what you have to do first is get an eligibility card. Right? This shows that you're a trustworthy person. Now the problem is, with all this trustworthy information, is now you're giving fingerprints, subjected to a fingerprint-based background check. And also, to get this eligibility card, you got to do all this stuff first and pay an undetermined fee, by the way, that police agencies can just set at their own will. They set it wherever they want it, and they don't have a time limit on when they have to do the background check and/or approve your eligibility card.
Now let's say, okay, you got your eligibility card. If you have a hunter's education course, well, you got four hours of training. If you don't, you have 12. This is going to teach you a variety of different things: how to load your gun, how to be safe with a gun, how to buy a safe, safe storage, keep your guns away from kids, and also victim awareness and empathy. Anyways, by the way, this article I read, most of it comes from The Reload. Absolutely fantastic; I like a lot of the articles that they write; they give some good information. And so, anyways, credit where it's due for them kind of laying all of this out. But essentially, you go through this process. Now, once you get your eligibility card, then you have to apply for the permit. The permitting process again: you have either 4 or 12 hours; you got to learn about all this stuff and some things that don't even involve guns. And then, and only then, once you get a 90%—like a test, right, like a grade—like you're getting a driver's license, essentially, now you're prepared to be a big boy or girl and go buy yourself a gun. But actually, no, you're not there just yet. You have to pay yet another fee to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. And by the way, that's a fee that they set on their own, and they're allowed to increase it once a year. So not only have you paid once to get your rights, now you paid twice. Now, I left one really egregious part out of that on purpose; I'll fill you in just in a minute. But let's say you go through all that, you're like, okay, I'm ready to buy a gun finally. Well, you are limited to guns that have fixed magazines, so either they're welded or pinned or whatever; they cannot have detachable mags.
Republicans and gun lobbyists say essentially it's a gun ban. The bill is co-sponsored by Democratic Senator Tom Sullivan from Aurora, whose son Alex was killed in the Aurora theater shooting. If this bill passes, it would outlaw the sale or purchase of semi-automatic rifles or shotguns that accept detachable magazines and use ammunition larger than .22 caliber and they have to be 15 rounds or fewer, requiring essentially law-abiding gun owners from exercising their rights, making it harder for you when you simply go to the range, you sight in a gun, you exercise your rights, and you're not hurting anybody. And yet you are going to be the one paying the price for this because, let's just be honest, criminals at the end of the day are going to either black market guns with detachable mags or they're going to steal them, right? That's where the majority of these firearms come from when it comes to criminals. Now, this is the same state that allows tremendous gangs to take over apartment complexes, and yet they have now pushed through the restrictions on gun owners. Now I got to say that it only passed the Senate so far, but the House is even more liberal, and of course, the governor wants to sign off on this. So essentially, this is a 95%, maybe even 99% chance this actually does get passed, and so I can't imagine the headache that other people in other states—you might be watching this from California or New York or Illinois—and you might be saying, "dude, this is nothing to me; this is what I deal with all the time." And unfortunately, I don't think they have a governor race until 2026. But remember Jared Polis just got elected back in 2022, pretty handily from what I understand, so this isn't like a new gun control advocate either, right? So keep that in mind. So do they vote him out next year? I'm not sure how that goes, but this is a big one.
One thing I will tell you though, and one thing that actually stopped this from going to an all-out gun ban, was a couple of Democratic senators. They did a revision, a kind of last-minute amendment that basically made it possible for people to still buy guns, and a couple of Democrats backed off of this, right? A couple of Democrats in other counties are like, "uh, you know, our voter turnout isn't that great, so I got to back off of this," you know, of course, they give some kind of excuse and why they do it or whatever, but in my opinion, it looks like, "hey, uh, you might actually lose if you sign on to this, so it probably looks better if you go out and say, hey, I support the Second Amendment; I actually just wanted this included, not an all-out ban." Again, it's a political game, but that, along of course with the amendment that was added, doesn't ban guns, right? So it's not a ban, right? And so there's going to be gun-rights groups that go forward; they of course are going to use the Bruen case; they're going to say, "hey, looking at this from a historical perspective, this is unconstitutional." The problem is, even in places where Bruen has been brought up, sometimes these cases are still viewed as constitutional when it comes to permit processes and like permit to own—not just conceal-carry permits, but permits to own—even at a higher court level have been viewed as constitutional. Does this make it to the Supreme Court? I don't know. In my opinion, when you compare it to Bruen, having to ask for permission and pay for that permission and not even put a stip—as to how long police agencies, sheriffs, whatever, have to process the applications, plus you got to give them your fingerprints and everything else that makes it even worse. Then, once you give them their fingerprints, this is what's just the icing on the top of the cake: they will create a registry, but the registry has a pretty nifty name: Firearms and Training Safety Course Record System. It's a registry. Even with Trump and Bruen things going on, you have things just like this on a state level that are absolutely terrible, man. I feel bad; I honest to God feel bad for people in states that have to deal with this. And so I'd love to hear from you guys that are in those states: what are some of the fights on the state level, on your local level, that you see happening? And have any of those actually swayed senators in the opposite direction? Let me know what you think about this whole situation down below. If you like what I do, consider subscribing, and see you in the next one. And as always, holding down.