Voted by both houses, signed by the governor?

Senate is 20 Dem to 15 Republican, and does not have a filibuster type of tactic. Hick's kinda... Unfortunate, though much better than Owens. He's been behind all four bills since before proposal, and had said he'd sign.

Universal background checks has had more than 50% popular approval ( in a pro-gun rights state ) since 2003, and recent polling puts it above 80%.

Magazine limits reached majority approval last autumn. The hard way, unfortunately. The hunting element finds high cap magazines unnecessary, and they're the largest moiety of advocates.

Colorado has a TABOR, and a recent history of "pay-for-play" in all regulation. Pretty much any service has a fee attached, and any new service has to have a fee attached to make it close to revenue neutral.

The campuses have not been such a big issue. Weapons are already banned in dorms and CoNGers or ROTC have secure storage. This just moves those armories off campus.

Colorado....

what about hurricanes and tornadoes and gangs and rioters and stuff?

Given that the state averages 5000 feet of elevation and is entirely landlocked for more than 1000 miles, we don't worry much about hurricanes.

We get twisters, but of the F1-F2 variety. Even out on the plains, the storms don't have room to build up the really big, nasty cells. We lose shingles, crops and sometimes a really old mobile home, but newer mobiles have better tie-downs. We don't lose towns.

Gangs... Yeah. We got some. The major varieties are Ski Bum, Hippie, Johnny Cash Cowboy, RonPaul!-ist, and Software Geek. We've gotten really good at concentrating our Birchers by giving them their own county. We put in attractions for them, kinda like a Fundy Disneyland. We handle them like Key West handles tourists -- herd them into a narrow pen where it's easy to milk them and easy to hose out the poo and the vomit in the morning. Key West calls it Duvall Street. We call it Colorado Springs. Also, we have pot. Three quarters of the state thinks this is a very good thing. Commonality is a blessing (though there are apparently massive theological arguments about variety and growing method.)

Rioters. Heh. Yeah. We don't give couches the right to carry. (See the 8th paragraph. Really. It happened. There's a local folk song about those years.) We also learned our lesson on labor and social justice riots the hard way, a century ago.

More seriously, we've endured two major massacres. Most of the state is within 3 degrees of separation from someone who got hurt or killed in one or the other. When it's that personal, it changes how the culture feels, and fear of the unlikely Zombie/weather/social disaster just stops working.

was zombie apocalypse, though I'm sure he would have included it had he thought of it.

Please tell me "where I don't want to retire to". I am going to guess Colorado Springs, the Air Force town.

Lets hope that other states get smart and do the same.

one would think that the demographics of Colorado would not be friendly to reasonable gun control laws, but one would be wrong.

In fact, as far as the national conversation goes, I think what Colorado did and didn't try to do is a great example.

There's a demographics paper out there about Columbine. 80% of the state was within 3 degrees of separation from one of those students. Most of the state is within friend of friend of friend, which means everybody got at least a vicarious brush. We haven't done the demographics for Aurora, but given the numbers, that was probably at least 80%. When that many people get brushed, attitudes change.

Also, hunters still have a great degree of influence over the debate, and they consider high cap magazines insulting to their skills.

(And this is just my impression from talking to the long-timers, but there's a huge resentment towards out of staters from the large oil bearing state to the southeast who come up here to hunt and ski. It goes back to the Civil War, but it's still active, and if that state thinks something is good, there's almost a political reflex towards doing the opposite. A certain oil services company whose name starts with H is prominent, but not popular.)

The urban area population is 86% of the population. National average is 84%. I was suprised at that.

Good job CO.!!!!

We hope.

Glad to see those passed.

Any challenge to the improved background check system will likely fail, but requiring a fee for the background check is more problematic from a Constitutional standpoint. Same with the magazine ban.

The fee is $25 (I think) when buying from an ATF dealer. (So says the sign at my local outdoor gear shop. I haven't been in recently, but that's what I recall from the last time DH and I were there.) I think that was challenged years ago and it survived. If the Lege was smart (which they generally are) they modeled the language on the tested language in the current bill.

I don't know how the magazine thing is going to work, but IIRC, most guns are packaged with stock magazines in the 10 round range. Our local shop doesn't carry the high cap magazines voluntarily (they pride themselves on only selling quality materials, and the gun counter manager considers them poorly made and a danger to the user. Which he repeats regularly and at volume to anyone who will listen. And watching him get wound up an enthusiast is entirely amusing.)

At $10. Don't know if the dealer HAS to perform it if you ask, though.

Most handguns these days come with 12-17 round magazines, stock, and most rifles that take magazines are 20 to 30-round. I don't have a problem whatsoever with limiting to 15 or even 10, but claiming that "high-cap" magazines are unreliable is disingenuous - a genuine Glock 17-round 9mm or Magpul 30-round .223 magazine is going to be as failsafe as possible - I've had cheap 5-rounders for my rifle that are far far worse than any quality 20.

CMags and the like on the other hand..

And you will continue to lose.

Is this a collective "you" lumping me with the right-wingers, or is this "you" just for li'l ol' me?

Either way, keep telling yourself that.

It's a problem you can solve for yourself.

...when Howard Dean helped my wife pull me into the ranks of the liberal Democrats.

I'm still here. Perhaps it's simply a matter of perspective for you, in which case, may I suggest a little George Orwell?

You know me. Okay, not as in I live down the street or we run into each other at Starbucks, but you know me.

I don't see anything in the Constitution that says we have no recourse but to allow our children to be murdered by the most efficient killing machines.

The environment has completely changed.

If it's a reasonable fee it will pass muster, if it's something usurious designed to make ownership prohibitively expensive it will be shot down (despite the cheerleading some here would give it).

Actually doing my research and reading the bill, it doesn't set a specific amount but rather says a fee that only covers the "direct and indirect costs" of calling in the check. It also looks like it's only for checks the state performs; the BGC bill itself specifies that a dealer is allowed to perform the check - at a cost of no more than ten dollars. Seems like the state may have set their own limits there, I can't imagine their total cost to be any higher than a dealer.

I especially like the mandate that all money be kept isolated and any leftover at the end of the year is only to be used to decrease the costs the next year. Keeps the state from running a slush fund.

The problem with basing next year's funding on last year's spending is that when the economy declines, and a reasonable government does not spend all they are allowed, they become hobbled when the economy grows -- and additional services become required. It's a rule that only causes spending to decrease -- and obviously there are plenty of good reasons for government spending to rise when an economy is booming.

It seems to me that what would happen is come January 1st, a stats-weenie will project the number of checks to be performed and then adjust the cost of the check to reflect the amount remaining, with costs to rise again if the money runs out earlier. The funding for the program is always there but if it's coming in under budget, the extra is basically decreasing the cost to the state.

I think this needed to be done in order to pass the bill - I'd have mixed feelings about turning this (good) regulation into a moneymaker for the state and I suspect a lot of people would outright oppose it. Not like it's going to be too successful anyway, with the cap on dealer pricing, the gov't check can't be much more than $10 and there isn't much profit to be had at that point.

But with almost everything else, the "looking back" spending model screws up vital services. Imagine being in charge of plowing freeways during a drought year. Next year, you're hosed.

Highway department funding comes from the state but the BGC program is funded by charging the users. "We didn't do a lot of checks last year - sorry, the cost is up 20% this year." That would no doubt be part of the "indirect costs" in the bill.

It's a win-win...the program is self-strengthening insomuch as the more people who use it, the lower the cost to them and the more appealing it is versus an FFL, but if it isn't successful, the increased cost is still passed on to them. And if it's totally unused, there's no real cost beyond the training of a sheriff's deputy or whomever on how to call NICS.

The entire program exists in a vacuum; the fees must pay for the program in its entirety and if the state highballs the indirect costs, the leftover money is spent reducing the fees next year. Revenue-and-debt neutral.

Good, good, good.

For non Colorado folks, E Adams is the stereotypical high plains -- rural and small town, mostly agricultural and ranching (though moving towards oil, gas and wind) and old-school conservative. it also encompasses much of Aurora, which is the major population center for the district. And Senator Hodges is a Dem from that area.

She was elected and reelected with a comfortable margin, and she's a middle of the road Dem -- seems okay with fracking, is fiscally sensible, has strong water rights policies.

Also, she's been championing a spaceportat the regional airport. For which she gets a bit of my money even if she wasn't already pretty good.

I mean, no one will ever be able to kill a lot of people on a gun-free college campus using magazines that hold 15 or fewer rounds...

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre[/url]

Carried out using mostly 10 round and a few 15 round magazines.

Guess my only question is why the only made it a misdemeanor if it was an illegal transfer.

IMO, it should be a felony.

Illegal transfers are already Federal crimes, I honestly don't know why they even bothered to put that part in there. Not that it bothers me at all, it's just kind of a "huh?"

But I agree, I doubt this bill will do much to hinder Person to Person transfers.

I'm not trying to pull the NRA "criminals won't obey the law!" BS line, I'm just wondering why you think making something that is already illegal more illegal would deter it in any way? Maybe possibly somebody who didn't know it was a Federal crime might become aware of it now that it's a state law, but I don't see any publicity surrounding it so at this point it almost seems like it's just something added to give leverage in plea bargaining.

That is the point.

So Colorado passed a law saying that if you don't follow the transfer process and are caught you will get a misdemeanor. I am saying it should be a felony.

I was reading that as transferring to a prohibited person (w/o check of course) was a misdemeanor, not a transfer without a check at all. I'm a bit ambivalent about a full felony but a much longer prohibition on possession of firearms would definitely be in order.

Although as I said, I am not sure this will curtail person to person transfer much, especially with just a misdemeanor.

Even though I haven't read any NRA publications, press releases, or any other form of media in years, and think they're basically raving lunatics..

I'm entirely fine with all these laws, having gone and actually read the bills to see the details. I carry where I can obtain a permit, and I own a "battle weapon" (like an "assault weapon" but based on a battle rifle not an assault rifle) as my primary deer rifle; but my pistol only takes 8 round magazines, I am limited to 5 when hunting, and wholeheartedly support background checks on all transactions, dealer or private.