I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but it looks as if there may be actual good news in the forecast.
Not, of course, from the Washington dispatches reporting the latest in the Trump/Musk (or is it Musk/Trump?) blitzkrieg on democracy. Whatever horror they bring next can no longer surprise us, and yet, somehow, one ugly move after another still seems to defy our ability to even imagine it.
Like, say, the fact that the White House insists Musk is not actually in charge of DOGE, which is, of course, a Musk invention and staffed by Musk’s Musketeers. And the fact that the White House refuses to answer the obvious follow-up question, if not Musk, then who? In any case, a judge ruled Tuesday that Musk, or whoever, can proceed, at least temporarily, with hacking data from seven federal agencies.
And I think I read somewhere — is this possible? — that Trump has made himself chairperson, which is apparently still an allowable word, of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts? Nah, that must have been a bad dream.
The good news is from Colorado. Sometimes you have to look hard, but it’s there. Last week, I wrote about Colorado AG Phil Weiser’s role in bringing a series of Democratic attorneys-general-filed lawsuits against Trump, Musk et al. Some have accused Weiser, who is running for governor in 2026, of just chasing headlines. But I’d say, as AG, whatever else Weiser is doing, he’s chasing justice.
Meanwhile, Denver Public Schools, in the first such lawsuit in the nation, is suing to prevent ICE from conducting raids on district campuses. Trump, of course, has OKed such raids. There have been lawsuits elsewhere trying to prevent raids in hospitals, which Trump has also approved.
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This week, there was a decent-sized protest — hoping for higher, faster, stronger protests — at the state Capitol on Presidents Day against today’s president, who wrote a social media post just days before the holiday declaring, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
Which is, of course, straight dictator talk and is reportedly a quote from Napoleon Bonaparte, who, we’ll recall if we remember anything we learned in world history, crowned himself emperor of France. I don’t know who fed the line to a historically ignorant Trump— I’ve got Steve Bannon in the pool, by the way — but it certainly reflects Trump’s view on the unitary executive.
And this week — despite Jared Polis’ annual bid to make life easier for hunters and sportsmen, if not for the rest of us — the Colorado Senate passed a bill on third reading that would ban the sale of many semiautomatic weapons with detachable magazines. The vote was 19-15, with all Senate Democrats except three — Nick Hinrichsen, Tony Exum and Marc Snyder — voting for the bill and all Republicans voting against.
There was also another Senate Democrat, Sonya Jaquez Lewis, who resigned Tuesday morning amid ethics allegations involving alleged mistreatment of her staff. If she hadn’t resigned, she probably would have likely faced expulsion. So, more good news.
Polis demanded a large carve-out — which we’ll get to in a bit — to win his approval for the bill, but the bill is far better than nothing. Far, far better. And it now seems somewhere between possible and likely that once it passes the House, which is pretty much assured, Polis will sign the bill into law.
But before we get to that good news, we first have to consider pieces of the too-often-tragic news that brought us to this point.
Anne Marie Hochhalter, who was paralyzed from the waist down in the Columbine shootings, died on Sunday. She was 43 and, according to a Facebook post from former Columbine principal Frank DeAngelis, died of natural causes. Though she was “confined” to a wheelchair, as they say, she lived a quite active life and became a champion for gun-safety laws.
Of course, her story became unimaginably more tragic when her mother, Carla Hochhalter, asked to look at a revolver in a pawn shop six months after Columbine and fatally shot herself in the temple as the shop’s staff and customers looked on in horror.
A bill in Anne Marie’s honor, and her mother’s honor, would be fitting. And, of course, there is state Sen. Tom Sullivan, who has dedicated his life, including his political life, to gun safety following the death of his son Alex, at the Aurora theater shooting. When debating this bill on the Senate floor, Sullivan, a co-sponsor, held a photo of the 100-round magazine used to kill 12 in the 2012 mass shooting that took his son.
A bill in Alex’s honor — and in honor of all the victims of the many Colorado mass shootings — would be fitting.
Sullivan has been reluctant to support bills banning semiautomatic weapons in the past, saying that though they were important, the controversy surrounding them would get in the way of what he considered more critical gun-safety laws.
But he was brought on board with this one, which, in part, is meant to make it more difficult for gun stores to regularly flout the 2013 law banning the sale of magazines larger than 15 rounds.
“What we’re trying to do is save lives,” Sullivan said during debate. He said he hoped that guns already purchased “would be in the hands of law-abiding, responsible guns and we don’t have to worry about them.” The worry, he said, was for the potential new owner who could walk into a gun store and, if they passed a background check, could come out with an AR-15.
“I’m not a threat to the Second Amendment,” Sullivan said. “It’s the 45,000 who are dying by gun violence every year.”
The way the bill was originally written, it would have outlawed the sale and transfer — although not ownership — of guns that accept detachable magazines. It wasn’t a ban per se — no one would lose a gun they already owned — but it was close enough to stop the sale of the most common semiautomatic assault-style rifles and handguns.
Too close for Polis, who caused the bill to be delayed while negotiations continued. They ended with a very large exemption. The sale of many of the originally affected guns would not be banned if a buyer really, really wants to get one.
Under the amendment, apparently approved by Polis, buyers would have to be vetted. The vetting requires passing a 12-hour course, over two days, similar to the one required for a concealed-carry permit, that educates purchasers on the use and safety of guns, particularly semiautomatic guns.
If would-be purchasers already owned a hunter safety certificate, which also requires training, they would need to pass a four-hour course. In either case, you’d need to get a 90% score — which is a solid B anyway, to pass either test, and a local sheriff would then issue the license.
Meaning, if someone wanted to buy an AR-15 or related gun to shoot up, I don’t know, a supermarket, they wouldn’t be able to do so before being vetted and passing the test, which I hope is not multiple choice.
The courses would require training in use and storage of semiautomatic weapons. It would include lessons in child safety and red-flag laws and extreme risk protection orders. It also calls for lessons in victim awareness and empathy.
I don’t know how well empathy can be taught, but the plain truth is, I think we can very well live with this bill.
And that promises to be great news.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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