Brevity has never been my strong suit, and I lack enough time to do a thorough write up of the current situation, so bear with me.
According to this here article, in June Hickenlooper, in response to a lawsuit aimed at striking down the magazine ban and universal background check law, offered to limit enforcement of the magazine ban while the case moves through the courts. He would have not enforced the ban pertaining to magazines that held less than 15 rounds even if they had a removable baseplate. Also, oddly enough as there's no room for interpretation in the law, he would not have enforced the provision hat bans temporary transfers, at least in so far as they would break the "continuous possession" requirement of the magazine ban.
The plaintiffs opposed Hickenlooper's offer. The judge, one Marcia Krieger of the federal 10th Circuit, asked the Colorado supreme court to clarify two points;
"Does the law 'amount to a ban on functional magazines for most handguns and many rifles, or does it apply only to magazines that are principally used with extensions or devices that increase the combined capacity to more than 15 rounds?”
"Does the grandfather clause, which applies when an owner 'maintains continuous possession” of magazines or more than 15 rounds-capacity, apply “when the owner allows another person to temporarily hold, use or share it for lawful purposes?”
Now, according to this article (mainly about the Free Colorado magazine giveaway) Dave Kopel filed for a preliminary injunction against the magazine ban. It's narrowly focused, asking only that the provisions concerning magazines that hold less than 15 rounds but have a removable baseplate, and the "continuous possession" portion, be stayed from taking effect. I'd go on for paragraphs about why I think it'd have been better to not try to separate portions of this law and attempt to have the whole thing stopped while the case is being considered, but as I mentioned above I lack time.
In any case, judge Marcia won't hold a hearing on the preliminary injunction until July 10th. Meaning she does not take this seriously enough to stop even portions of the law from going into effect.
So, barring a miracle twixt now and midnight, Colorado will officially leave America in a few hours. The magazine ban, the universal background check and all the other gun owner control laws will go into effect. Which to me means that Colorado will have lost any legitimate government. A constitution is a contract, and when government breeches said contract, then they lose any legitimacy they may have otherwise possessed. Not that this is the first instance of them failing to live up to their contractual obligations, but at some point the violations of terms reach a point that they cannot be ignored.
So without traveling across any border, Coloradans will be living outside of America because of the perfidy of the goverment.
For your consideration, here are two .pdf's - the motion filed by 54 out of 62 sheriff's to strike down the magazine ban and universal background check law, as well as Kopel's motion to have the magazine ban stayed in part while the court considers the motion to strike it down.
Posted by Publicola at June 30, 2013 08:40 PM | TrackBack