Beauprez’s anti-gun past may come to haunt him

When asked about the Second Amendment, Bob Beauprez has a tendency of only talking about Governor John Hickenlooper’s policies.

So what about Bob?

A mere 14 years ago, Beauprez and and former Governor Bill Ritter were on the Amendment 22 band

Bob Beauprez flip-flops on 2nd Amendment.

wagon, which was a state-wide referendum calling for special restrictions for gun shows. These included an instant background check for certain sales that take place at a gun show, even if not required had the same sale occurred not at the gun show.

Amendment 22 passed with 70 percent of the vote.

During the 2006 contest between Beauprez and Ritter; Beauprez claimed Ritter loved gun control, whereas he supported the Second Amendment. This claim was the basis of one of the Both-ways-Bob ads which mocked Beauprez for flip-flopping on the Second Amendment.

The Independence Institute defended Beauprez’s mistake, by claiming the error was due to poor journalism by the Denver Post.

However, going back a bit further, when Beauprez was Colorado Republican State Chairman, he sent out a letter to GOP legislators calling for the party uniting on new gun control laws in the aftermath of the Columbine Shooting.

At the time, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners responded to the message by saying, “Gun rights supporters are told, in essence, to sit down, shut up, and take their medicine.”

Beauprez constantly called for closing the “loopholes in our gun laws.” The Owens Administration, working with Chairman Beauprez, crafted legislation to reign-in gun shows, proposed mandatory gun locks, and moved to disarm Coloradoans between the ages of 18 and 21.

Even Congressman Tom Tancredo voted for an assault weapons ban and a ban on magazines, along with making a few incriminating statements after the school shooting.  

The strategy, in the wake of Columbine, was to compromise a little on gun control, in order to maintain control of all three branches of state government. The results of the 2000 General Election saw the Republicans lose the State Senate to the Democrats.

The question now turns, has Beauprez become a hard-line Second Amendment kind of guy?

Recently, the question of gun control arose during an Aspen gathering. Aspen is not necessarily the friendliest of towns for gun advocates. Beauprez, playing to the audience said, if elected, and if a (gun control) repeal comes to me, I’d sign it.

Beauprez further stated that people with mental illnesses shouldn’t have easy access to guns.

Sounds a bit like the old Beauprez?

Perhaps compromising on some aspects makes political sense in some areas of strategy, but once you go down the road of giving an inch, before you know it, you’ve given a mile.

To be fair to Beauprez, he has claimed that a propensity to commit crime must be an element of limiting the Constitutional rights of someone who is mentally ill.

If society knew who had a propensity to commit a crime before a crime occurred, then why wouldn’t we create a pre-crimes police force, as illustrated in the film Minority Report to stop all evils before they occur?

Beauprez has also failed to define who would be legally classified as mentally ill? Does one visit to a psychologist mean a citizen could be pre-empted from their Second Amendment rights?

Prior to endorsing Beauprez this week, State Senator Greg Brophy, had declared both Beauprez and Tancredo weak on the Second Amendment. Yet in his endorsement, Brophy steered clear of gun talk, saying Beauprez had the best odds of winning.

Perhaps being soft on the Second Amendment is the key to winning the even-split urban-7th Congressional District twice, but for voters in rural Colorado the difference between the incumbent and Beauprez regarding gun control is a shady haze of grey.

All hope is not lost.

Republicans Mike Kopp and Scott Gessler, both have served America in the Army and both believe the Second Amendment is a right not to be compromised.

The Rocky Mountain Gun Owners feels the same way and has given Kopp and Gessler the two-thumbs-up.

Defeating Hickenlooper will be tough, but victory only comes if there is a candidate who can draw distinctions, not blur the differences over key policy issues, such as the Second Amendment. 

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Matthew Soper, Letter to the Editor, Beauprez’s past may come back to haunt him, Delta County Independent, May 21, 2014, at A2.

Matthew Soper, Letter to the Editor, Beauprez evaluated on the Second Amendment, Gunnison Country Times, May 21, 2014, at A14.