Colorado Democratic Rep. Tom Sullivan has been making waves since he took to the streets in protests after his son, Alex, was killed in a mass shooting at an Aurora movie theater in 2012. Rep. Sullivan ran on a platform of sensible gun laws and won. He, along with a blue wave of liberal legislators, came into Colorado’s House and proceeded to pass a bunch of laws the people of Colorado asked for. One of those was a red flag law that allows law enforcement to temporarily take away someone’s guns, pending an evaluation, if there is evidence that they may do harm to themselves or others.
The red flag laws have been deemed “controversial” by mostly right-wing Second Amendment types the and media has adopted that label, in many cases unconsciously giving credence the overly simplified conservative pro-gun position. Colorado Republicans, not in the majority anymore, did what they do best: attack democracy. The GOP started the process of calling for a recall of Rep. Sullivan, with Colorado GOP vice chair Kristi Burton Brown saying, “Rep. Tom Sullivan needs to be recalled because, like the rest of the Democrats in the legislature this session, he did not represent the families of Colorado.”
Early Tuesday morning, the Denver Post published an article explaining that the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners gun rights group didn’t feel “confident” they and their invisible support network would be able to get the required 10,035 valid signatures needed in time to set off a recall. So sad, bye bye, talk later. Just a couple of hours later, in a Facebook post, Burton Brown pretended that her forked tail was not between her legs as she explained that the GOP and their gun rights activists would be turning away from trying to have democratically elected Rep. Sullivan recalled, in order to focus on “essential efforts.”
Brown attempted to blame the big L on her forehead on “outside” money pouring in to defend Sullivan. I guess that money stopped people from signing?
But over the past couple of weeks, the Colorado Republican establishment has been exposing itself, with members saying truly distasteful and abhorrent things, including accusing Rep. Sullivan of “politicizing” his son’s death. Maybe, when people saw it in that light, they didn’t want to support the unpopular, and therefore anti-democratic, recall attempt.
I guess all of those Colorado families didn’t want to sign your petitions. Maybe it’s hard to hold the pens when they are soaked in children's blood? It’s also fun to watch Republicans admonish everyone for wanting to consider impeaching a sitting president who has clearly broken the law, while pretending that trying to recall a representative who enacts, along with dozens of others, a gun safety law is some kind totalitarian movement into anarchy.