Scot Kersgaard Posts

Like any good — or bad — Secretary of the Interior, Colorado’s Ken Salazar will leave Washington in a few weeks with a long list of both friends and enemies. Thing is though, they’re pretty much the same friends and enemies he had when he got there.
While liberals and environmentalists tend to view Salazar as a centrist, moderate and level-headed pragmatist, conservatives and people in the oil and gas business sometimes have viewed him as an obstacle to the American Way.
“Secretary Salazar assumed the job with an attitude that the oil and gas indu...

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With a bill to repeal the death penalty likely to be introduced in the 2013 Colorado Legislature, there are bound to be philosophical arguments about the merits of capital punishment. One thing that seems beyond debate, though, is that ending the death penalty could save Colorado taxpayers a lot of money.

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You might think the issue of marijuana legalization had been settled, at least as far as Coloradans were concerned. Turns out some people aren’t so sure, and one of them is former Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy.
When someone named Kennedy starts an organization to fight against the legalization of marijuana, people notice. Some legalization supporters are not amused.
Kennedy’s group was officially la...

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State Rep. Claire Levy this week told The Colorado Independent she is writing a bill to eliminate the death penalty in Colorado. Levy, D-Boulder, said she will introduce the bill if she is satisfied it will have a strong chance of passing.
She said the death penalty is a failed policy that has “outlived its time. It is used so rarely in Colorado that it is not really a tool that either prosecutors or juries think is necessary.”

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Colorado U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette introduced legislation today that would exempt states from federal laws banning the sale, possession and use of small amounts of marijuana by adults. The bill so far is being co-sponsored by Colorado Democrat Jared Polis and Republican Mike Coffman as well as a number of other representatives from around the country.

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Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett announced today via Twitter that his office would drop all pending prosecutions of adults for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana and/or possession of marijuana paraphernalia.
An office spokesperson confirmed the decision but did not know how many cases would be affected.
Prosecutors in Washington State’s two largest counties made similar announcements Friday.
Last week,

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In the wake of this week’s historic vote to legalize marijuana in Colorado, the state’s three Democratic U.S. House members are drafting legislation aimed at easing the tension between the new state law and longstanding federal prohibition of the drug.

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As Governor John Hickenlooper prepared to speak today with United States Attorney General Eric Holder about how to proceed with implementing Amendment 64, which legalizes marijuana in Colorado, the measure’s supporters say they want to see the governor stand up for the measure that passed by a 10-point margin.

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America’s war on drugs got a lot more interesting Tuesday night when Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana. Legalization advocates were quick to call the two measures “the beginning of the end” of marijuana prohibition in the United States.

“The beginning of the end has begun,” Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), wrote at his blog.

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Pete Lee has served one term in the Colorado House, and as a Democrat from conservative Colorado Springs, he is a marked man. He calls himself a moderate, but he supports abortion rights and same-sex civil unions, which makes him a radical liberal in the eyes of some El Paso County Republicans.

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J. Paul Brown, a sheep farmer from the tiny town of Ignacio in La Plata County, Colorado, is one of the most conservative members of the state legislature. He votes against nearly all bills proposed by Democrats and often against bills proposed by Republicans as well. Indeed, he has cast lone ‘no’ votes in the House more than once since he was elected to office on the Tea Party wave in 2010 to replace relative moderate Ellen Roberts, who voters sent to the state senate.

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U.S. Senator Michael Bennet rode to victory in Colorado two years ago with the support of women, who wanted nothing to do with Republican challenger Ken Buck’s hardline position on abortion and what seemed to be a dismissive attitude toward women in general.
This year, Democratic incumbent CD-7 Congressman Ed Perlmutter may be banking to some extent on similarly winning the support of women in his race against

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With Colorado Republicans enjoying a one-seat advantage in the State House, Democrats are eying a dozen or more districts as winnable this year. One of those is HD 27 in northwest suburban Jefferson County, where hard-right first-term incumbent Libby Szabo is fighting off Democratic insider Tim Allport. Voter registration numbers slightly favor Szabo but Allport is confident heading into the last weeks of the campaign.

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Washington and Oregon both have measures similar to Colorado’s Amendment 64 on the ballot this year. It is unknown how the federal government will respond if any or all of them pass. The feds could respect the decision of voters, they could try to block implementation of some parts of the law, or they could shut down dispensaries and arrest people involved in the wholesale and retail ends of the business.

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ARVADA– In a debate sponsored by a business group here Thursday morning, it came as little surprise that Colorado Congressional District Seven candidates Joe Coors and Ed Perlmutter received no questions about their stances on social issues.

Although their views on abortion and gay rights, for example, may offer the sharpest contrast between the two men, it was their approaches to tax policy that got the business crowd pumped.

Incumbent Democrat Ed Perlmutter said he supported President Obama’s position that the country should let the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year for people earning $250,000 a year or more. Coors said the cuts should be extended indefinitely.

“One of the things we have to realize is that you got to have to compromise in this world,” Perlmutter said. “You don’t get everything you want all the time and very rarely even. You need to work with the other side, so if that number were to move up I would listen to it. But I would otherwise stand with President Obama in allowing those tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest people in the country but I’m open to whether it is $250,000 or $500,000 or maybe even a million.”

While neither Perlmutter nor the moderator had used the phrase “fair share” during the debate, Coors said it was wrong for the government to make those kinds of determinations.

“Saying we are not paying our fair share is just a ridiculous notion. Do you really want the government to tell you what’s fair? I don’t,” Coors said when addressing the issue of whether or not to extend the Bush tax cuts.

“Apparently Joe Coors along with Mitt Romney think what’s fair for them is to pay vastly lower taxes than middle-income earners,” said Perlmutter spokesperson Leslie Oliver by email after the debate. “Joe wants to a part of Congress so he can raise taxes on seniors and hardworking people in the middle so he can have more tax cuts and increase the deficit by another $5 trillion”

The Coors campaign did not respond to a request for comment or clarification.

Coors said business owners need to know their future tax rates in order to plan to make investments back into their businesses. The best way to provide tax certainty, he said, is simply to extend the current tax structure.

Perlmutter argued that balancing the budget will require both increasing tax revenue and reducing expenditures.

Coors said he would like to see meaningful tax reform but that “reformation will take forever.”

“My solutions is we need certainty in the tax situation and that is best done by extending the current tax rate out indefinitely. Then we can come back and look at the things we need to reform, but tax certainty is one of the key things that will stimulate small business in this country. I would extend those taxes out as far as possible to allow certainty for small businesses… and reignite that American dream.”

Noting that he was one of a bipartisan group of 38 U.S. representatives who voted to support a budget plan that both increased revenue and cut spending, Perlmutter said only a budget approach that looks at both revenue and expenses will be effective in cutting the deficit.

“I’ve already voted on a budget proposal that reduces the deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years, similar to the Simpson-Bowles plan that addresses both revenue and expenditures. There are two sides to a ledger. There is a revenue side and and an expenditure side. The proposal that the Republicans have come up with looks only at the expense side and does not recognize the revenue side. Under the Ryan budget, which my opponent favors, we would add $5 trillion to the deficit. What we need is a balanced approach…

USA Today called us the brave 38 because we didn’t go with partisanship. We recognized that it takes both revenue and expense to reduce the deficit. As you recall, at the end of the Clinton Administration we had a surplus, with revenues exceeding expenses, but then we added two tax cuts which cost the country about $2 trillion, two wars, that’s another couple trillion dollars, and a crash on Wall Street, so all told those add up to about half our debt.”

In addition to freezing taxes, Coors said we need a moratorium on new business regulations.

“Regulations need to be frozen. We have enough of them. We don’t need any more. Let business sort things out,” he said.

Perlmutter said he is supported by various business groups, including real estate and mortgage groups, whose members he said understand the value of some regulation.

“Four years ago in 2008 we were having a massive failure on Wall Street because they ran amok because regulations were not being enforced or had been repealed,” Perlmutter said.

He said Americans lost about $19 trillion in personal wealth in the stock market and real estate crashes and in lost jobs.

“So you need regulations. We need to know what the rules of the road are but they need to be smart and effective.”

The debate, at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, was sponsored by the Jefferson County Business Lobby, and drew about 300 people, who paid $20 each for the program and breakfast.

Image of Rep. Ed Perlmutter: Kersgaard

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In November 2010, political junkies in Colorado anxiously awaited results of the nail-biter race for House District 29, waiting days before election workers could confidently announce that Republican Robert Ramirez beat incumbent Democrat Debbie Benefield by 197 votes, giving the GOP a one-seat majority and control of the House.

Today all eyes are on HD 29 again, as Democrats seek to win back the Arvada-Westminster seat. “Because this was the race it all came down to last time, there’s really a spotlight on the district again this time,” said Chris Kennedy, Jefferson County Democratic Party chair.

This year’s challenger is energized and well-funded. Democrat Tracy Kraft-Tharp practically bubbles with excitement as she talks about the campaign and why she is seeking public office for the first time.

She told the Independent that she loves knocking on doors and that, in general, people are very happy when they find a candidate on their stoop.

“I thought, ‘What kind of person knocks on a person’s door and interrupts their life?’ But most people are thrilled. They’ve never had a candidate at their door. This has been the experience of a lifetime. I’ve already achieved the American Dream: I’ve had a great education. I’ve had great jobs. And now I’m running for the legislature.”

Kraft-Tharp knows the balance of power in the General Assembly hinged on this seat in the last election, and recognizes that both parties look at the HD 29 contest as a must-win again. But she insists she has been thinking of running for this seat since long before Ramirez’s 2010 victory.

According to America Votes, Republicans hold a slight edge over Democrats in the district, 13,609 to 13,373 with another 15,391 unaffiliated voters. Linda Cerva, Democratic chair for the district, told the Independent that reapportionment did not have much effect on the district, with voter registration numbers by party being very similar today to what they were in 2010.

Kraft-Tharp has already opened a wide fundraising lead over Ramirez. In the most recent reports, filed with the Colorado Secretary of State’s office this week, Kraft-Tharp had raised a total of $100,358 compared to $60,267 for Ramirez. More importantly, she had $76,750 on hand compared to $40,669 for Ramirez.

“Our campaign momentum continues to build,” she said. “The grassroots support behind this campaign shows that Coloradans want leaders that put partisan bickering aside and work to solve the real problems Colorado families face.,” Kraft-Tharp says.

Ramirez won in 2010 despite being outspent and says he is not worried about the fundraising differential this time around either.

“They will outspend me. What I do is I talk to people, and I listen. When I knock on doors, I find people who are experts in their fields, and I listen to them,” he told the Independent.

Kraft-Tharp says she has no interest in partisan bickering. When asked about votes Ramirez has cast or statements he has made, she’s quick to change the subject.

“As a first-time candidate, my focus is on what we are presenting. I know there are issues where we disagree, but I’m not running against his platform; I’m running on my platform. I don’t want to talk about what he is doing. I’m not going to say he did bad and I’ll do good. When the legislature is defined by partisan fighting, the people in the district are the ones who pay the price,” she said.

Although she won’t talk specifically about Ramirez’s positions, she happily states her own positions on issues where Ramirez has made waves.

Asset Bill

Kraft-Tharp supports the Asset Bill– a Colorado version of the DREAM Act. The bill would allow some undocumented students who graduate from a Colorado high school to attend a public college in Colorado at a tuition rate slightly higher than in-state students pay but dramatically lower than the rate out-of-state students pay. Ramirez voted against the bill in committee each of the last two years, saying he supported it in principle but that it had flaws.

In the 2011 session, he was a swing vote in a committee that killed the bill. He said then that he would work over the summer to help craft a bill he could vote for in 2012, but then he voted against the 2012 version of the bill as a member of the Education Committee in the spring. It passed that committee with a one-vote majority anyway, but was defeated by one vote in the Finance Committee.

Ramirez acknowledges that the kids who would be helped by the Asset Bill “didn’t do anything wrong” but he says the bills that have been presented have too many problems. One change he wanted to see was that students be required to have attended not only high school in Colorado but also middle school.

“I wanted to address a concern that some Republicans have that families would move here just to get discounted tuition, and I think requiring kids to have been here through middle school does that,” he said.

He said his proposals also raised the tuition undocumented students would pay, while still keeping the rates well below those for out-of-state students. Both of his proposals, he said, were rejected by the bill’s House and Senate sponsors.

He said “a lot of Hispanics are upset with me,” but added that he has heard from even more who were supportive of his position. “They said they came here the right way and they thanked me for standing up for what America is.”

Kraft-Tharp says the bill would benefit the state by helping to educate as many residents as possible.

“I support a quality education for all of our kids, so I support the Asset bill. These are our kids too,” she said. “It is good for all of us to educate all of our kids. We all need the chance to reach our potential. We can’t turn to these kids after they graduate from high school, and say to them, ‘Sorry, no.’”

She says the 2012 Colorado Legislature “blew it” on the Asset bill and also on the chance to pass a civil unions bill that would have granted greater partnership rights to same-sex couples.

“I’m sad. Those are not, or shouldn’t be, party-line votes. Both of those issues come down to supporting families, all of our families,” she said. “I just felt very sad with where we went on both of those. When I talk to people in the district, I hear that people want those rights.

Kraft-Tharp, who has spent most of her career in mental health, social work and education, said access to both health care and education can be economic drivers for the state.

“Quality education, for all our kids, stimulates jobs. Health care will be a big issue, and that also comes back to jobs. Not having access to good health care stops people from getting jobs,” Kraft-Tharp says.

Civil unions

About civil unions, Kraft-Tharp said, “I can’t believe we are still talking about this, I mean it is 2012. This is basic justice. It is not a hard issue for me.”

Like his position on the Asset Bill, Ramirez has said he supports civil unions in theory, but that the bill considered by the legislature went too far, and was too much like marriage. He says his constituents support his position on the issue.

Gun rights

Ramirez has been a staunch advocate of gun rights, voting in favor of a bill to repeal background checks of people trying to buy guns. In 2010, he received a 92 percent rating by the NRA and an “A” grade from the Colorado State Shooting Association.

Several legislators have told the Independent they expect some sort of more restrictive gun legislation to be introduced in 2013.

From Ramirez’s web site:

In the aftermath of so many horrible attacks on schools, the question of gun control keeps coming up. We as Americans have many rights and one of them is the right to bear arms. The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States has often been misunderstood. Over the years I have asked many people what this Amendment meant to them, and many felt it was to protect themselves from thieves, or animals. In truth they are not far off. The problem is those thieves are the ones who wish to take our guns away, and our rights. The animals are those that would attack innocence. The combination of those two and the sheep (those who fear both and the right to bear arms) present a dilemma for our country. This right is one of many that were written in order to provide Americans with liberty and freedom from oppression.

The Second Amendment is written as such: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Understanding what this means to our freedom is extremely important. When a government is the only holder of Arms, the people are at their mercy. When the people hold Arms, and the Constitution is written so that the Government is beholden to the people, balance and order can be kept and Liberty can be achieved.

The Second Amendment, Ramirez argues, is a safeguard of the First Amendment, which guarantees citizen freedoms against governmental power. “The Second Amendement is only to make sure the First Amendment is never taken away,” he said.

Voter fraud

Another issue likely to come before the legislature next year is voter ID and other measures intended to prevent voter fraud.

“I’m not sure voter fraud is a big issue,” Kraft-Tharp said, suggesting that the Republican-led national drive to protect against polling-place voter impersonation is counter productive.

A recent News21 investigation of records from all 50 states found that since 2000, only 10 cases of polling place voter impersonation have been reported. That’s about one reported case for every 15 million registered prospective voters in the country, according to News21. Polling place voter impersonation is the only kind of fraud that the nearly 40 more-restrictive voter ID laws enacted or considered in statehouses this year can guard against, yet many hundreds of thousands of legal voters would and will find it difficult to meet the new ID requirements.

“A lot of people in long-term care would not be able to vote if they had to show [new forms of] ID to do so,” Kraft-Tharp said. “Voting is our right. It is who we are as Americans. [Older Americans] have fought for that right,” she said.

Colorado Democratic Party Chair Rick Palacio is less reticent than Kraft-Tharp to go after Ramirez for his votes on controversial issues.

“Ramirez’s Tea Party politics are simply too extreme for Colorado,” Palacio wrote to the Independent. “His support for fringe policies like the personhood amendment puts him far outside the mainstream values of his district.”

Palacio said that in opposing civil unions, for example, Ramirez was “pander[ing] to partisan extremists” and was part of a “failure of leadership in the state house.”

Don Ytterberg, GOP chair for Jefferson County, said Ramirez was representing the views of his constituents.

“He cast his vote [on civil unions] according to what he and his constituents believe,” Ytterberg said.

Noting that Ramirez won by just 197 votes, Ytterberg said Ramirez had to “represent a lot of people who didn’t vote for him.” He called Ramirez a “very principled man.”

Ytterberg said lots of Latino voters, for example, would have had Ramirez vote in favor of the ASSET tuition bill but he looked beyond that single bloc of voters.

“He could have simply voted along with that interest group, but instead he took the interests of the whole district into account and cast a very principled vote,” Ytterberg said.

Ramirez said he does support the personhood amendment.

“I signed the petition, but it has been voted down.” He says if personhood was introduced in the legislature, he would vote against it, because the people have already spoken twice. “I will sign it and I will fight for it every day of the week, but I won’t bypass the voters,” he said.

Recently, Ramirez came out in support of a flat tax, a position he reiterated when interviewed by the Independent.

“A flat tax? Oh yeah, I support that. It would benefit everyone. You would know how much you will have to spend. The government would know how much it has coming in,” he said.

He said he would support some sort of “subsidy” for people with income below a certain level. “The government will still have to help the people in the streets,” he said.

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Poll results released late Wednesday by Public Policy Polling reported Colorado voters favor banning assault weapons, with 58 percent supporting a ban and 35 percent opposing. Those survey results are supported by results released the same day by Quinnipiac University, The New York Times and CBS, which reported that 58 percent of likely Colorado voters also favor a national ban on high-capacity clips and magazines.

“That is great news,” said State Rep. Beth McCann, D-Denver. “The poll results give me more confidence that Colorado voters don’t think assault weapons need to be available to people other than police officers or those in the military.

“There is really no use for these weapons other than to kill as many people as possible, so I am very pleased. This is encouraging,” she said about the results from the PPP poll.

McCann previously told The Colorado Independent she may introduce legislation regulating assault weapons and ammunition in the next session of the Colorado Legislature.

The New York Times poll also asked whether people generally favor stricter gun laws, and on that question 38 percent of Colorado voters favored stricter laws, while 50 percent said the laws should remain the same.

Asked to explain why people would say they do not favor stricter gun laws but then say they do favor banning assault weapons and high capacity magazines, PPP polling analyst Jim Williams told The Colorado Independent that, as in all polling, it comes down to how the questions are drafted.

“If you ask a really broad question like ‘Do you think gun laws should be more restrictive?’ people think of the worst case scenario, where people’s hunting rifles would be taken away. But if you ask a more precise question, such as one dealing with assault weapons or high-capacity magazines, then they think more critically,” he said.

Kristen Rand, legislative director at the Violence Policy Center, said asking general questions about gun laws is “worthless.”

“Most people don’t know what our gun laws are. Most people think we’ve already banned assault weapons. When they find out that semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines are legal, they are astounded. These polls show strong support for banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” she said by phone.

“Given the fact that the gun debate in this country is controlled by the gun lobby, it is interesting that people still come to the conclusion that we should ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” she said.

Congressman Ed Perlmutter’s campaign spokesperson told the Independent that the congressman continues to support both The Second Amendment right to bear arms and bans on assault weapons.

“Ed supports the Second Amendment, and he supports the reinstatement of the Assault Weapons ban,” wrote Communications Director Leslie Oliver in an email. “It is time for Congress to get serious about sensible crime control measures.”

According to the PPP poll, Colorado Democrats support reinstating the assault weapon ban 84-12, and unaffiliated voters support the ban 52-41. Republicans opposed an assault weapons ban 53-38.

In other PPP results, Coloradans support Amendment 64 to legalize marijuana 47-38, and they support civil unions by 57-37.

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While many politicians are playing it safe, saying it is too soon to talk about gun laws or saying they don’t want to “politicize” the Colorado and now Wisconsin shootings, Democratic U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette and Ed Perlmutter have been outspoken about their desire for more stringent regulation.

On the other side, adjunct law professor and Independence Institute research director David Kopel has been just as outspoken, penning a July 26 column for National Review that argues no new gun restrictions are needed.

On Tuesday, July 24, just four days after the Aurora murders, DeGette called on Congress to ban the kinds of high-capacity ammunition magazines that helped enable the killer to shoot 70 people in about two minutes.

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While many politicians are playing it safe, saying it is too soon to talk about gun laws or saying they don’t want to “politicize” the Colorado and now Wisconsin shootings, Democratic U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette and Ed Perlmutter have been outspoken about their desire for more stringent regulation.

On the other side, adjunct law professor and Independence Institute research director David Kopel has been just as outspoken, penning a July 26 column for National Review that argues no new gun restrictions are needed.

On Tuesday, July 24, just four days after the Aurora murders, DeGette called on Congress to ban the kinds of high-capacity ammunition magazines that helped enable the killer to shoot 70 people in about two minutes.

DeGette targets online ammunition sales

A week later, on July 31, DeGette and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY-4) introduced the Stop Online Ammunition Sales Act, which they say would make it more difficult for people to anonymously stockpile ammunition, as the Aurora killer had reportedly done. Kopel scoffs at both measures as being too restrictive on the rights of “law abiding citizens” and says both would ultimately be ineffective anyway.

DeGette said she has been working to ban high-capacity magazines for her entire tenure in Congress.

“Yet here we are, 16 years later, and in the wake of another violent tragedy it’s impossible to understand why an ordinary citizen can get a hold of a high-capacity magazine that can fire 100 rounds in 90 seconds,” DeGette said in a press release shortly after the killings.

DeGette was cosponsor last year of HR 308, which would make it illegal to possess high-capacity magazines. Eighteen months later, the bill is still waiting for a hearing in the Judiciary Committee.

Asked about her motivations for speaking out almost immediately, she said in an interview with the Colorado Independent that after grieving, her first thought was to ask herself what she could do to try and prevent things like this from happening again.

“When you see that kind of carnage, as a parent it makes you deeply sad, and we are all still grieving, but then you start to think, ‘Is there anything you can do?’ I’ve been working on this issue for 20 years… I introduced a bill to ban these magazines back in 1998,” she told the Independent.

According to the press release issued by DeGette and McCarthy:

“The Stop Online Ammunition Sales Act works through four components:

· “It requires anyone selling ammunition to be a licensed dealer.

· “It requires ammunition buyers who are not licensed dealers to present photo identification at the time of purchase, effectively banning the online or mail order purchase of ammo by regular civilians.

· “It requires licensed ammunition dealers to maintain records of the sale of ammunition.

· “It requires licensed ammunition dealers to report the sale of more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition to an unlicensed person within any five consecutive business days.”

“The senseless violence of the theater shooting in Aurora served once again as a reminder that our nation must do more to protect innocent Americans from the carnage of gun violence,” DeGette said in the release. “It is quite frankly inexplicable that one individual was able to purchase 6,000 rounds of ammunition on the internet, while we had no system in place to raise a red flag. It is basic common-sense to ask ammunition dealers to be licensed and to require record-keeping that provides critical information to law enforcement, while protecting privacy. This bill is a reasonable step to help us do what we can to prevent terrible shootings from becoming mass casualties.”

Kopel says that tracking large ammunition purchases would unfairly harm law-abiding gun owners. He said American Olympian skeet shooter Kim Rhodes, who just medaled in her fifth straight Olympics, shoots up to 1,000 rounds a day in practice. He said that even an average recreational target shooter can easily go through 4,000 or 5,000 rounds a month.

“Ammunition is a lot more expensive now than it was a few years ago, so people look for ways to save money, and buying in bulk is a good way to do that. There is nothing suspicious about buying a thousand rounds at a time. If you want to create a government list of people exercising their rights, you can do that, but if the police are supposed to investigate everyone who buys ammunition in bulk, they will have time to do nothing else,” Kopel said.

Columbine parent speaks out

Tom Mauser, whose son Daniel was killed at the Columbine school shootings in 1999, sees no reason for putting off discussions about gun laws. He began speaking publicly less than two weeks after his son was killed and went on to start Colorado Ceasefire, an organization dedicated to reducing gun violence.

He said politicians have reason to fear a backlash from groups such as the National Rifle Association and Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.

“The NRA does have that much power,” he said, explaining why politicians are so reluctant to speak out about gun violence.

The president of RMGO did not return a call seeking comment.

DeGette said it was “obvious” to her that we will never be able to stop someone from walking into a theater or other public place and pulling out a gun. “If someone wants to do that, they are always going to be able to do it.”

She told the Independent she is a firm supporter of the Second Amendment, but that it doesn’t give people unlimited rights.

“We don’t let people own shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. We don’t let people own nuclear devices. You have to ask if automatic assault rifles and hundred-round magazines have a role in society, and I don’t think they do.”

“I understand the Second Amendment,” DeGette said at a Washington, D.C. press conference on July 24. “I believe in the Second Amendment. But we have a duty – every single Member of Congress has a duty – to protect every American man, woman and child from the horrific massacres we experienced in Aurora.”

Noting that the Aurora shooter hit 70 people with bullets in about two minutes, she said the casualty count might have been a lot higher if the 100-round magazine on his rifle hadn’t jammed. According to The New York Times, the shooter began his rampage with a shotgun, then switched to an AR-15-type semi-automatic rifle with a 100-round magazine and finally switched to a semi-automatic pistol when the magazine on the rifle jammed.

“People say you shouldn’t talk about this so soon or that the NRA has so much power that we will never be able to do anything, but I don’t think that is true,” she said.

Too often, she said, all the public or the media hear are the most strident voices from both sides. She said, though, that there is a vast middle ground where people on both sides of the gun debate agree that people should be able to own and use guns for hunting or target practice, but not semi-automatic rifles with 100-round magazines.

“It’s not about banning all guns; it’s not about taking people’s guns away; it’s about taking reasonable steps that will stop people from having guns only designed to kill many, many, people in a short period of time,” DeGette wrote in the release.

“Some of those on the other side of the aisle have been proclaiming that you are never going to be able to completely stop someone from taking a weapon into a theater or a school or a mall, or any other public place, and start shooting innocent citizens. That may very well be true, but I’ll tell you something, we might not be able to stop that person from bringing in a weapon, but we sure as heck can stop that person from being able to shoot 71 people out of 200 in just a couple of minutes,” she said at the July 24 press conference, according to a transcript of her remarks emailed to reporters by her staff.

Middle ground

Mauser said he thinks most Americans fall into a middle ground on guns. He said his group and most people agree that hunters should be able to own guns and that people who feel the need to own a gun for personal defense should also be able to own guns.

“There are not that many extremists on my side of the argument. We know we will never ban guns in the United States. A lot of the people on the other side are extremists,” he said.

Mauser said that even in the face of polling that shows most gun owners and a lot of NRA members support more rigorous background checks, the NRA leadership won’t budge.

“The NRA is so macho, so testosterone driven that rank and file members don’t feel they can speak out. The membership is ‘Field and Stream’ but the leadership is ‘Soldier of Fortune,’” he said.

The poll Mauser refers to was commissioned by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The poll, as released to the public, did not contain any questions about assault weapons. According to a press release issued by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, 87 percent of NRA members agreed that “support for Second Amendment rights goes hand-in-hand with keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.”

Other questions showed support for more strict background checks designed to keep guns out of the hands of people with criminal records. The poll also showed support for individual states to be able to set their own gun laws.

DeGette said she got a call from a hunter after the Aurora murders. The man told her he loves his guns and travels with his guns but then told her that he sees no role in society for the kind of semi-automatic rifle used by the Aurora shooter.

“I think that’s where most people are. We will always have guns, but we can impose limits,” she said.

In a poll conducted for Time by ABT SRBI in June 2011, 62 percent of those polled said the federal government should be able to ban “semi-automatic assault weapons.”

See data from these polls and others here.

Kopel, though, said it is not even clear that AR-15-type rifles–which reports say was used in the Aurora murders– is an assault weapon. The gun has been manufactured by Colt since the 1950s after having first been developed by Armalite; today many other manufacturers make clones of it. Kopel said it is the most popular rifle in the United States, used for everything from deer hunting to target shooting. “If you are only going to own one gun, the AR-15 is a good choice.” He said the gun is too powerful for squirrel hunting and not powerful enough for moose hunting, but perfect for deer hunting.

Kristen Rand, legislative director at the Violence Policy Center, disagrees strongly with Kopel, saying the AR-15 and its many variants are unquestionably assault weapons. In general, she said an assault weapon is one that has been designed for the battlefield and optimized to be as deadly as possible. She said modern assault weapons were first used in World War II and have since been adapted by manufacturers for the consumer market.

“These guns are designed in a way to make them much more lethal than an actual hunting rifle,” she said by phone.

She said the sales of traditional hunting rifles have been in decline for years as fewer people hunt, and most hunters already have guns. She said the gun industry refers to semi-automatic weapons as “sporting rifles.”

Her organization joined with Mauser’s group and more than 25 other groups across the country to issue a statement just hours after the shooting. It reads in part:

“Today’s mass shooting is the price paid in death, pain, and suffering by families and communities for an out-of-control, militarized gun industry that prides itself on selling increasingly lethal products to virtually anyone with little concern for the inevitable tragedies that result. In America today—where virtually anyone with a credit card and a grudge can outfit their own personal army—mass shootings are as predictable as they are tragic. Just as predictably, those who celebrate this lethal shift—the NRA and its gun industry partners—remain mute when families and communities suffer the consequences. And when attention fades, they’ll once again resume their lethal trade, unless we stand together as Americans to stop them.

“Gun violence is preventable. It is long past time for policymakers at all levels to act. Americans have a right to feel safe in their communities—in schools, restaurants, movie theaters, and all public places. Using the cynical desires of the gun lobby and firearms industry as an excuse for inaction is shameful.”

Assault weapon ban

The assault weapons ban of 1994 to 2004 outlawed some versions of the AR-15, but Kopel and Rand both said other guns that were functionally similar were not banned.

“The ban was based more on cosmetics than on function,” Kopel said, noting that a lot of AR-15s are made of black plastics, giving the gun a menacing look, whereas some functionally similar guns with wood stocks look more like what people think of as hunting rifles.

Rand said her group supports updating the assault weapon ban so that it is more comprehensive.

“The old ban had loopholes that the industry exploited,” she said.

She acknowledged that any new ban would probably allow people to keep and use guns that they purchased legally under existing laws.

“The question is ‘Do we turn off the spigot now or not?’”

As for the 100-round magazine the killer reportedly used, Kopel said the AR-15 was designed to accommodate a magazine no larger than about 40 rounds. A 100-round magazine, he said, would make the gun unbalanced and harder to fire accurately. He said most 100-round magazines are owned as nothing more than novelties by collectors.

Even though DeGette has cosponsored a bill to ban high-capacity ammunition magazines, she said she didn’t see the bill passing in the current Congress.

DeGette holds a safe Democratic seat and can speak out on issues like this without much fear of political reprisal. Ed Perlmutter, though, represents a suburban swing district, where he faces a wealthy self-funded challenger in Republican Joe Coors, who has been endorsed by the NRA.

Perlmutter acknowledged that for him there is some danger in speaking out, but he wasted no time in doing so, going on Face the Nation the Sunday after the attack, where he said it is time for Congress to reinstate the assault weapon ban.

“I think we should, and I think that’s where it starts,” Perlmutter answered when asked about reinstating the ban.

Asked why he spoke out so soon, he said he was asked a direct question on Face the Nation and answered it.

“This happened in my district, and these questions have to be addressed.”

He said he has been for banning assault weapons since he first ran for the state legislature in 1994. Since the shooting, he said numerous constituents–including members of the NRA–have told him that something needs to be done to make assault weapons less common.

“What we are doing now doesn’t work,” he said.

Perlmutter’s position has drawn praise from Joanne Schwartz, executive director of ProgressNow Colorado.

“We support Rep. Perlmutter’s stance and his timely response…. Coloradans want our congressional delegation to come together to help prevent this type of tragedy from happening again – and that includes responsible gun-owning Coloradans,” she said. “We are now at the point where action is required from our elected officials. I hope to see many more Colorado politicians speaking out and offering solutions in the next couple of weeks. Ignoring the massive loopholes in our gun laws is not an option,” Schwartz said.

On guns, at least, the contrast between Perlmutter and Coors could not be more clear. In response to getting the NRA’s endorsement, Coors wrote this on his campaign website:

“It’s an honor to earn the endorsement of the National Rifle Association. My opponent seems to think that taking guns away from the good guys will keep the bad guys from getting them. I know the difference and I will act accordingly as your Congressman from the 7th District. Unlike my opponent, I trust Colorado’s gun owners and will work in Congress to ensure that they enjoy the freedom the Second Amendment guarantees, not less.”

Mauser said the moves proposed by DeGette and Perlmutter–banning semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines–would be a good start at both the state and federal levels. Mauser also said his organization wants to see better regulation of internet sales and the introduction of universal background checks.

“Critics say that if someone wants to get a gun, they will, but do we need to make it this easy?” Mauser asks. He acknowledges that gun rights are a contentious issue, but says most people agree that the Second Amendment does not give people unlimited rights. “First, we have to agree to have a conversation. We have to get away from cliches and partisanship. A lot of people see it as black and white, but there is a lot of gray.”

Mauser doesn’t buy the argument that what we need is more people carrying more guns. “We’re the most heavily armed developed country in the world and our death rate from guns is also the highest. Putting more guns into the hands of more people just isn’t working. People are pretty much the same everywhere. You have disgruntled employees everywhere. You have embittered spouses everywhere. You have unhappy students everywhere. You have mentally ill people everywhere. People around the world are not all that different from us, but they don’t kill each other with guns at the rate that Americans do. To say guns are not a factor is ridiculous. We make it easy for people to deal with their problems in a very tragic way.”

Mental health spending

Kopel said the country needs to spend more money on mental health programs. Kopel, who represents the Independence Institute–which generally supports lower taxes and smaller government–said the federal government has dropped the ball on mental health programs and needs to dramatically increase spending in this area.

He said federal spending on mental health programs has been “severely cut” over the past 50 years and needs to be ramped back up dramatically.

“There are a lot more crazy people walking around today than in the past,” he said.

As federal mental health budgets were cut over the years, it was expected that states and communities would pick up more of the burden, sometimes with federal grants, but Kopel says that just hasn’t worked.

“Caseworkers have caseloads that are just way beyond what they can handle. I understand why the mistake was made but the result is we have gravely underfunded public mental health programs. I don’t want to go back to the 1940s when parents could have their daughters institutionalized for being defiant or promiscuous, but we have to be able to institutionalize people who need it,” he says.

“There were very few guns laws in the 1960s and yet we did not have these mass murders,” Kopel said. In the 1960s, he said, people who needed it were institutionalized. “These mass killers tend to be males in their late teens or early twenties who are highly intelligent. That is an age when you often see the first signs of schizophrenia, but for a lot of people it goes untreated, so yes there is something we can do.”

Kopel said that mass killers get a lot of attention, but that mentally ill people kill a lot more people one or two at a time than are killed in mass events.

Acknowledging that the Independence Institute is known for its small government views, Kopel said the government should not spend money telling people not to smoke and could shift that money to mental health.

“Everyone knows by now that smoking is bad for them, but it is a personal choice that is none of the government’s business. Mental health, though, is something the government absolutely should be involved in and it is an area that needs a lot more money.”

State lawmakers weigh in

Colorado state legislators are also talking about guns–and mental health.

“If we don’t start investing more in mental health and real treatment, we are going to continue seeing events like this,” said State Senator Joyce Foster, D-Denver. “It is outrageous how few psych beds we have anymore. If we want to make a difference in society, we need to get back to investing in mental health. We had mental institutions before Reagan, but we threw the baby out with the bathwater and today we have a lot of vulnerable people.”

Democrat Rep. Beth McCann told The Colorado Independent she is researching the current state of Colorado’s gun laws and will probably bring legislation to ban assault weapons and to make it more difficult for people to buy large quantities of ammunition anonymously.

“It seems to me that we don’t need assault weapons available to the general public. I would like someone to explain to me why anyone should be able to buy an assault weapon,” she said. “Hunting and personal protection, sure, but assault weapons? Really? Assault weapons have no purpose but to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible,” McCann said. McCann has served as Denver’s manager of safety and was also chief deputy district attorney for Denver.

She said she knows that some people think the easy availability of weapons is not a factor in the frequency of gun violence in the United States. “That is one point of view, but I think making it more difficult for people to get assault weapons will make a difference,” she said.

“In the wake of this shooting and the memory of Columbine many people I’ve talked to are asking what we legislators can do to confront this recurring violence involving easy-to-acquire guns, particularly military-style assault weapons and extended magazines,” said Rep. Sue Schafer, D-Wheat Ridge in an email.

“Right now the legislature is looking at current law and determining what measures might help prevent or limit such massive devastation by a single person while still respecting Second Amendment rights. Conversations about guns and gun rights provoke strong feelings but they are ones we must have if we are to ever address the continued occurrence of these senseless acts of violence.”

State Rep. Max Tyler, D-Lakewood, said he would be glad to see bills that address the easy availability of assault weapons, large magazines and ammunition.

“I think there is a lot of common ground on the gun issue. I have no desire to limit anyone’s ability to own hunting rifles or a weapon for personal defense,” Tyler said, adding that automatic and semi-automatic assault weapons, and 100-round clips do not fall into those categories.

Foster, who is not running for reelection this year, questioned why anyone thinks assault weapons should be allowed.

“Why does anyone need an assault weapon?” she asked. “I’m outraged at the ease with which people can get assault weapons. I hope one of my former colleagues will carry a bill to address that. I’d like to hear why anyone thinks assault weapons are covered by the Second Amendment.”

Foster said state and federal legislators need courage to stand up for their beliefs. “As a legislator you do what is right and if that means you don’t get reelected, so be it.”

She said it may be hard for legislators to find common ground. “How do you even start a conversation?” she asked. She said there used to be thoughtful legislators on both sides of the aisle who could sit down together and work things out, but that such discussions are harder to come by today. She blames the Republicans.

“Democrats do what they want. They won’t be controlled, but Republicans these days all sign pledges for this and that. They all march to the same drummer,” Foster said. “Colorado mirrors Washington in that regard. A very vocal minority is leading the Republican Party. The majority needs to be more vocal. People need to do what is best without worrying about being reelected. Stop looking over your shoulders and reading the editorials. Have the courage of your convictions, really,” she said.

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