Democrats have complete control of the state government in Colorado. The last Republican governor left office in 2007. The last time Republicans controlled one of the legislature’s two chambers was 2019, and Democrats currently hold a supermajority in both the House and the Senate.
Over the past decade, Democrats have enacted a number of new gun control laws, including “universal” background checks, a ban on “large capacity” magazines, and a “red flag” law, as well as repealing firearms preemption and allowing localities to pass their own measures more restrictive than state law. So how’s that working out for the state?
Gun violence in Colorado is not new, but it has hit a 40-year high in recent years. In 2021, the number of firearm deaths has more than doubled from prior decades, with population increase not accounting for the overall increase.
In 2022, Colorado experienced 13 mass shootings, ultimately breaking the mass shooting victim record. At the same time, overall firearm deaths and suicides have been massively on the rise since at least 2006. The state now ranks higher than most others for gun deaths, with the exception of homicides, with most shooters and victims being males under the age of 45.
Despite the clear evidence that more gun control isn’t making Colorado a safer place, columnist (and former Democratic senate candidate) Trish Zornio says it’s actually Republicans who are to blame for the increase in “gun violence”.
In Colorado, Republican elected officials and political groups like Rocky Mountain Gun Owners still fight against most of the safety measures needed. At the same time, they blatantly disregard gun safety principles by taking family photos with rifles and leaving guns in public areas. At the home where the teen was shot in the face after a gun was unnecessarily the go-to, there’s a Trump flag prominently displayed.
In these circles, guns have become an extreme display of cultural pride, consequences be damned.
Yes, groups like RMGO and others have challenged many of Colorado’s recent gun control laws in court. Is Zornio really suggesting that gun control laws should be off-limits to judicial scrutiny? I guess after blaming Republicans for the failures of Democratic policies, it wouldn’t be a stretch to argue that courts should automatically uphold every restriction on the right to keep and bear arms that Democrats can come up with.
Perhaps in Colorado, gun violence actually is our new norm. We’ve already scarred two generations since Columbine, and a third is underway. Any efforts to fully curb violent trends at this point will take just as long to undo as they took to create, which could be years. Making those strides without the help of Republicans will take even longer. This isn’t hopelessness, it’s reality.
So buckle up Colorado, because no matter how many legislative efforts Democrats pass in the coming years — and I hope they do — we’ve still got a long way to go before gun violence stops.
Well, she’s right about the state having a long way to go, but she’s wrong about virtually everything else. The truth is that Democrats have done nothing to curb violent crime in the state because they’re far more focused on cracking down on lawful gun ownership. Democrats couldn’t even agree to increase the penalty for stealing a gun last session, with Democrats like Rep. Javier Mabrey arguing that it was “hard for me to vote for any law that increases a criminal penalty without evidence that there’s a direct link to a deterrent effect — without evidence that we will see a decrease in people who are stealing firearms.”
A recent study also linked a rise in both violent and property crime in Denver to the pullback of police officers after the George Floyd riots during the COVID pandemic. Co-author David Pyrooz says violent crime rose by more than 14% in the city and county of Denver in 2020, not because of some dramatic influx of gun-toting Republicans, but because criminals were emboldened and empowered by the lack of policing.
On average, pedestrian stops declined by 83%, vehicle stops by 85%, drug arrests by 76% and disorder arrests by 62% in Denver neighborhoods. These reductions primarily occurred after COVID-19 set in and after the May 25 death of Floyd.
According to Pyrooz, neighborhoods with higher concentrations of poverty and disadvantage tend to experience more crime, and thus higher levels of police activity. As a result, Pyrooz and his fellow researchers expected such neighborhoods would experience the greatest increase in crime from police pullback in 2020. This wasn’t the case.
“We actually found that police pullback was associated with greater increases in crime in more middle to upper class communities,” said Pyrooz.
Violent crime increased in 55 neighborhoods and decreased in 23, with Central Park seeing the largest increase. Property crime increased in 70 neighborhoods and decreased in only eight. Five Points saw the largest increase in property crime, while Auraria saw the largest decrease.
Republicans have little say in policymaking decisions, whether at the local level in Denver or at the state capitol. Zornio is right to be concerned about the staggering rise in violent crime across the state over the past decade, but she’s off-target by blaming Republicans for the increased danger that Coloradans are facing. Democrats are in the driver’s seat in Colorado, and they’re the ones leading the state off a cliff when it comes to crime and public safety.
