Polis considering next step on gun control after it failed

(AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

As governor of Colorado, Jared Polis has embraced plenty of gun control measures. It’s one of the hallmarks of his administration, really.

Now, his state is reeling from the shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Colorado Springs.

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Unsurprisingly, now Polis is looking for the next gun control step.

On a frigid Tuesday afternoon in Colorado Springs, Gov. Jared Polis knelt in front of a makeshift memorial and drew a heart on the asphalt.

A sea of roses and candles splayed in front of him, leading up to the portraits of five club-goers and Club Q, the scene of the latest mass shooting to shatter Colorado.

“Club Q will be back, and the community will be back, people will feel safe and people will learn from this,” Polis said shortly after adding his own mark to the spontaneous memorial.

Addressing gun violence was a top priority before the attack at Club Q, lawmakers say. But the massacre there — “unfortunately, another chapter in a long story of tragedies,” as Senate President Steve Fenberg put it — underscores the need for action.

Though the shooting has prompted lawmakers to discuss everything from an assault weapon ban to age restrictions on the purchase of firearms, they said policymakers cannot continue to wait for a mass shooting to react to gun violence here.

“Everything should be on the table,” Fenberg, a Boulder Democrat, said. “We should prioritize what we think is going to save the most lives and have the most impact. That should be our north star.”

Why should everything be on the table, though?

What happened in Colorado Springs was horrible and tragic, sure, but red flag laws were passed in the state well beforehand, yet they did nothing to stop this shooting.

Perhaps more importantly, though, the alleged killer was already known to law enforcement after making a bomb threat–a felony he wasn’t prosecuted for. If he had been, then maybe he wouldn’t have had the weapons he used in his attack.

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While some are looking at reforming the red flag law or closing supposed loopholes in gun sales, the truth of the matter is that every measure needed to stop this was supposedly already in place. Any effort to craft or change existing laws is nothing more than lawmakers trying to deflect from the current laws’ failure.

Law enforcement dropped the ball. Legislators who claimed certain measures would stop mass shootings were either wrong or just plain lied.

Doing more of what just failed isn’t a recipe for improving the lives of Colorado’s residents. It’s nothing more than a salve on the soul of those who blew it in the past, a way to make them look like they didn’t get it wrong but will suddenly get it right.

Frankly, it’s disgusting.

However, this is what gun control fans do. They never acknowledge the failures of the laws they advance, they just use those failures to justify more gun control.

They do the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

That sounds like the definition of something.

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