Colorado voted out both pro-gun legislators elected in 2013 recall

In September 2013, gun-rights advocates won a hard-fought recall election in Colorado: Voters ousted two state senators, John Morse and Angela Giron, who had helped pass a slate of gun control measures a year earlier, and replaced them with Republicans. The victory was largely symbolic — the NRA beat Michael Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns, but Democrats held control of the legislature — and it was also fleeting.

Last Tuesday, the two Republicans, Bernie Herpin and George Rivera, were handily defeated by Democrats, one of whom, former state legislator Michael Merrifield (pictured, left, with Morse), had been a Colorado coordinator for Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The key: Big turnout.

"It was vindicating," Giron told The New York Times. Herpin tells The Times that guns weren't much of an issue in his loss to Merrifield. And Republicans won enough seats elsewhere to take a one-seat majority in the State Senate. But Democrats kept the State House and governor's office, so for at least the next session, the gun laws will probably stay on the books.

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