A lot of people think I hate firearms, all of it based on long-ago columns, which is fair. Handguns, given the evil people do with them, I still detest, though I am coming to accept a person’s right to own one.
I will admit, too, that not so many years ago I would have fallen with my laptop to the ground arguing the stupidity of House Bill 1180, which would waive a background check at gun shows for anyone holding a concealed-carry permit.
What a waste of legislative time and brain cells, I would have spat. The whole gun show-background check debate was settled not long after Columbine with Amendment 22, in which about 70 percent of voting Coloradans deemed the gun show check worthy of becoming law.
Well as I sit here now, I still think HB 1180 is a waste of time.
It has nothing to do with police chiefs’ and sheriffs’ concern: that Colorado has no standard concealed-carry permit or a centralized database to determine whether a permit is still valid.
Sen. Evie Hudak, D-Westminster, got a lot closer to the mark when she said the bill basically undoes Amendment 22.
Trust me, a background check is not that onerous a chore. With each of my bird guns, the process took all of maybe 10 minutes.
I called Les Palmer, who runs Colorado Gun Collectors, which runs shows at the Denver Merchandise Mart, albeit sales of guns no longer in manufacture.
“Ask me,” he says in his slow, considered manner, “it is all a matter of common sense. I think checks are necessary. The time it takes all depends on the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, but it normally takes 10 minutes.
“Worst case, it takes three to four hours. It’s still light-years better than California, with its three days of waiting.”
Steve Schreiner and I have been at war over the years, with him once calling me a newspaper-abetted gun- grabber. I still believe he was instrumental in getting me blacklisted by the NRA on whose board he still sits.
We have since patched things. Schreiner, who lives here, recently congratulated me on owning the long guns I do.
He was instrumental in getting concealed-carry passed into law. He is now nursing HB 1180 through the legislature.
He launches into the story of a gun show in Denver two weekends ago where the crowd was so large the permitting process took six hours; by Sunday, the wait was better than 24 hours.
But, I told him, there were nearly 21,000 concealed-carry applications submitted to county sheriffs last year, with 17,695 actual permits issued. Of those, 130 were revoked for reasons such as “arrest records,” “discretion” and — goodness — “restraining orders.”
Small potatoes, he said, compared with the total number of permits issued. But even small potatoes, I figure, can cause enormous pain and tragedy.
“Those are the arguments,” Schreiner said, “that are made by senators and others not sympathetic to our cause.”
It is a matter of fairness, he said. Holders of concealed-carry permits have already been vetted by the state.
Fairness, indeed, I say. Think about it.
By some strange alignment of the stars, I find myself at the gun show. The place is slammed, and here comes, well, some guy, an HB 1180 pass in his hand, who strides to the front of the line I’ve been waiting in for Schreiner’s six hours. We’ve all got guns.
Now I’m not saying anything about me.
I’m just saying.
Bill Johnson’s column runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
