Gun-rights activists won a major victory this week after two Colorado Democrats who helped push through a package of tough new gun-control laws were ousted in a historic recall vote. State Senate President John Morse and state Sen. Angela Giron were both defeated in the state’s first-ever recall effort, which served as a referendum on their support for legislation banning magazines with more than 15 rounds and requiring background checks on private gun sales. The National Rifle Association, which spent $500,000 on the campaign, said the vote was a rebuke of “anti-gun billionaires”—a swipe at New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who gave $350,000 to the anti-recall campaign. Morse said the laws, passed in the wake of last year’s mass shooting in Aurora, Colo., had made the state a safer place. “If it cost me my political career,” he said, “that’s a small price to pay.”
Can we declare gun control dead now? said Charles Cooke in NationalReview.com. “Colorado was supposed to be the blueprint for other ‘purple’ states.” If magazine limits and background checks could be implemented there, anti-gun campaigners claimed, then why not in Pennsylvania or Nevada? “Now it will presumably be difficult to convince state legislatures in other parts of the country to touch the question of guns.”
The gun-control movement shouldn’t panic, said Ben Jacobs in TheDailyBeast.com. Yes, it lost two enthusiastic supporters in Colorado. But Democrats still hold a majority in the state legislature, and the measures that Morse and Giron championed are not going to be repealed any time soon.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
But the tremors sent out by this vote will be felt in Washington, said Zachary Roth in MSNBC.com. While polls show that modest gun-control measures are broadly popular, Colorado proves that the NRA can still capitalize on the intensity of gun-rights supporters to punish lawmakers who step out of line. The next time Congress considers federal gun laws, every swing-state member will think about the fate of Morse and Giron.
-
NSA surveillance ruled unconstitutionalfeature A federal judge ruled that the National Security Agency's mass collection of domestic phone data “almost certainly” violates the Constitution.
-
The gun debate one year after Newtown
feature The first anniversary of the school shootings in Newtown reignited the debate over gun control, as another school shooting occurred in Colorado.
-
The battle over voter ID laws
feature The Obama administration is challenging the right of Texas to enforce rigorous new voting restrictions.
-
Stricter affirmative action
feature The Supreme Court raised the bar for considering race in university admissions.
-
Voting Rights Act gutted
feature The Supreme Court struck down a core component of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
-
A turning point on gay marriage
feature The Supreme Court struck a historic blow in favor of gay rights.
-
Court approves DNA swabs
feature The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that police are justified in taking DNA samples from anyone who’s arrested.
-
The hunt for a White House link to IRS scandal
feature Republican lawmakers intensified efforts to directly link the White House with the Internal Revenue Service scandal.