Gun-show initiative passes test

By David Olinger
Denver Post Staff Writer

July 4, 2000 – The Colorado Supreme Court cleared the way
Monday for a citizen initiative to require
background checks at gun shows.

If the measure reaches the November
ballot, Colorado voters will be the first in
the nation to decide whether every
firearm sale at a gun show must be
preceded by a call to check the
customer’s criminal record.

Proponents expect a high-stakes battle with the National Rifle
Association, which has already begun shopping for a Colorado
political consultant to help defeat the initiative.

In legal challenges, four groups of gun owners tried to keep the
initiative off the ballot. They contended that its language was
misleading, that it contained more than one subject and that it
failed to adequately assess its likely cost to taxpayers.

Supreme Court justices rejected those challenges in a unanimous
opinion. They held that the initiative has a single purpose, that the
law enforcement and incarceration costs of regulating all gun-show
sales were adequately described as undetermined, and that the
citizen initiative is a fundamental constitutional right in Colorado.

The ruling was a victory for SAFE Colorado, a group formed after
four guns sold privately at gun shows were used in the 1999
Columbine High School massacre. The sponsors announced at a
news conference Monday that they had collected signatures from
63,424 people – enough to put the initiative on the ballot – but are
continuing to circulate petitions to make sure enough registered
voters have signed.

“I am obviously very, very encouraged,” said SAFE Colorado
political director Tom Mauser, who wore a button with a photo of
his son Daniel, who was killed at Columbine. “We’ve cleared a
hurdle that was in our way. Now there are others.”

By federal law, licensed firearms dealers already must keep records
of their gun-show customers and call for a background check
before the sale is made.

The law does not apply, however, to vendors who rent tables at
gun shows to sell private gun collections. Nor does it apply to
gunshow patrons who bring a single gun to sell, advertising it as
they walk the aisles.

Supporters of the initiative call this the “gun-show loophole.” Every
weekend, these events feature two sets of guns for sale, one
requiring customer records and background checks, the other
offering guns without paperwork.

Opponents call the initiative an infringement on their Second
Amendment rights and a step toward a registry of what once were
private gun trades.

To date the National Rifle Association has kept a low profile in this
campaign. A powerful lobbying group for gun owners, it has limited
its investment in the Colorado contest to paying the legal expenses
of Barry Wagoner, an NRA member who challenged the initiative.

But SAFE Colorado leaders expect the NRA to spend millions of
dollars to defeat the initiative once it is placed on the 2000 ballot.
One Republican consultant in Colorado confirmed Monday that the
NRA called her two weeks ago to explore her interest in directing a
statewide campaign against the gun-show measure.

“I just told them I couldn’t do it,” said Katy Atkinson, a Littleton
resident who has worked as a consultant for two Colorado
Republicans in Congress, for school choice and, seven years ago,
for the NRA.

Atkinson said she was too busy to take on the gun-show battle,
and besides, “I’m not sure how I’m going to vote.” Wagoner, the
NRA member, was represented in the legal challenge by Hugo
Teufel III, a lawyer who expressed little surprise at Monday’s ruling.

In Colorado, “the process has been set up to favor the proponents
of initiatives,” he said. “All ties go to the runner.” According to
Handgun Control Inc., a Washington-based advocacy group, citizen
groups in Colorado and Oregon have been campaigning for the first
statewide referendums to require background checks on all
gun-show sales. One other state, Florida, has adopted a
referendum giving counties the option to regulate gun-show
transactions.

Naomi Paiss, a spokeswoman for Handgun Control, expects the
Colorado vote to be watched nationally. “Gun control has been
such a hot topic since Columbine,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine a
more obvious ground zero than Colorado.”

SAFE Colorado was formed after Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, both
Columbine seniors, killed a dozen classmates and a teacher with an
arsenal acquired from Colorado gun shows. They bought three of
their guns directly from private vendors at the Tanner Gun Show
with the help of an 18-yearold friend, Robyn Anderson. Their fourth
gun, a TEC-DC9 assault pistol, was sold privately at another show
to Mark Manes, a 22-year-old man who later resold it to the killers.

The Colorado State Shooting Association, the NRA’s state affiliate,
successfully fought legislation in Colorado this year to require
background checks on all gun-show sales. Its officials have been
planning how to combat the same measure at the ballot box, where
early polls have shown at least 80 percent of voters favor the
initiative.

It “requires registration of the buyer and the firearm into dealer
records,” even when the gun-show seller is not a dealer, said
James Winchester, a Colorado State Shooting Association official.

“These records are not destroyed. They’re kept in perpetuity,” he
said. “If people want gun registration, this is an up or down vote
on it.”