By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Fox News is reporting that Colorado Democrats are “pushing a series of gun control bills” closely resembling restrictive laws like those in California and other “blue” states, but will the new laws actually accomplish anything?
Recently, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun control group, recently announced it has upgraded Colorado from a C+ to an A- over the course of three years—2021-2023, based on the strength of its gun control laws.
But a look at homicide data from the Colorado Department of Public Health shows that for the past few years, murders in the Centennial State have climbed, suggesting that the restrictive gun control laws have not delivered the goods. According to Department of Health data, in 2019 the state recorded 252 slayings, and in 2022, Colorado logged 414 murders. Back in 2016, the state posted 230 homicides, so making gun laws stricter did not have the desired—or predicted—result. Being in the “Top 16” states for strong gun control.
It is essentially the same story as in Washington state, where the gun laws get high marks, but the number of homicides has doubled over the past eight years. Simply put, adopting strict gun control laws does not translate into lowering the body count, a subject the gun prohibition lobby so far has declined to address.
So, when Peter Ambler, executive director of the Giffords Law Center says, “We know strong gun laws save lives,” the data simply doesn’t support his claim.
According to Colorado Politics, the 2021 session of the Legislature “saw the passage of legislation for gun storage, as well as a requirement that lost or stolen guns be reported.” Among the other reasons Colorado gets an “A-minus” grade is because it adopted a waiting period, banned so-called “ghost guns” and increased the minimum age to buy guns, Colorado Politics said.
Fox is noting the Colorado House Judiciary Committee last month approved a bill to ban so-called “assault weapons.” But a Colorado Springs firearms instructor identified as Ava Flanell told Fox News Digital, “The ‘assault weapons’ bill is incredibly deceptive. They want to ban not only every kind of ‘scary’ gun like ARs and AKs, but also 80-90% of semi-automatic firearms popular today, including handguns and shotguns.”
According to the Denver Post, both Denver and Aurora experienced a slight reduction in homicides last year, “though the number of deaths remains well above levels the cities saw in the years before the pandemic.”
And Denver’s 2023 body count of 84 people was still well above the 63 slayings posted in 2019, the newspaper noted.
