Colorado has pushed through a lot of gun control lately, but questions remain as to just how long any of it will survive. That's especially true after Wolford, where some "misapprehensions" about Bruen were cleared up. Especially in saying that the burden is on the government to show that a law is constitutional, not the other way around.
And now, Colorado's waiting period has had its first day in court, and the arguments are...special.
But state attorney Joseph Michaels argued the Colorado law follows the federal government’s background check timeline. Michaels urged Kane to renew his earlier finding that the Centennial State waiting period survived scrutiny even after Ortega and Wolford.
“If a three-day background check is constitutional, how can a three-day waiting period not be?” Michaels asked.
Michaels was quick to draw distinctions between New Mexico’s seven-day waiting period and Colorado’s. Besides differences in time period, Michaels said Colorado’s law only applies to buyers while New Mexico’s restricted the rights of sellers as well, and that New Mexico granted more exceptions to their law, making it unevenly applied.
When it came to Wolford, Michaels argued the Supreme Court shot down a law limiting access to a firearm someone already owned, which didn’t apply to a future acquisition.
“Acquire is something that happens before one comes into possession of a firearm, making it separate from the right to have and bear arms,” Michaels said.
On rebuttal, McCoy called the state’s argument “ridiculous,” outright chuckling at the idea that obtaining and having firearms could be different.
“I don’t see how there is a right to possess arms but not a right to acquire them in the first place,” McCoy said.
Cam previewed the whole Ortega reference last week when he took a look at some comments by Judge Kane. For what it's worth, I'm with both Cam and Mr. McCoy here. Ortega made it pretty clear that waiting periods are unconstitutional, and it wasn't that the waiting period was seven days instead of three, as I understand the case. I could be wrong, but I don't see it.
And further, the idea that acquiring a gun is fundamentally different than owning one under the Second Amendment is a dangerous idea at its face.
If acquiring guns isn't protected, then the right to own them is meaningless. I have a right to own a unicorn, but since I can't acquire one, it doesn't matter. Likewise, if I can lawfully own a gun, but I can't buy one, one can't be given to me without permission from the state as if it were a purchase, nor make one myself, then how does the lawful right to own one matter?
It's ridiculous.
Honestly, if this is the best that the state can do, then the waiting period is doomed, and I find it funny.
Seriously, as noted in the above-linked article, if Wolford was found unconstitutional because it separated someone from their gun on their lunch hour, how is a three-day waiting period different? Yeah, Wolford did more than that, but it's not exactly a stretch to see the point here.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
Help us continue to report on and expose the Democrats’ gun-grabbing schemes. Join Bearing Arms VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member