Critiques of Background Checks | Take Action | Get your "No on 22" Yard Sign
Profiles of Law-Abiding Citizens | Ballot Language (PDF)
Rocky Mountain Gun Owners PAC * P.O. Box 3114 * Denver, CO 80201 * 303.432.3006
What does Amendment 22 do?
Amendment 22 seeks to expand the failed Brady background check and registration system to private sales at gun shows. Amendment 22 defines a "gun show" as one person with 25 firearms, or three persons with any firearms, even if only one gun is sold or given as a gift. Under this arbitrary and vague definition, Amendment 22 will only serve to harass peaceable gun owners.
Does this mean registration?
Amendment 22 expands the registration of gun owners. When you purchase a firearm and are forced to undergo the Brady Registration check, your name is entered into a state and federal database, tagging you as a gun owner. Former gun owners in Canada, Great Britain and Australia warn Americans that this type of gun owner registration is what led to the confiscation of firearms in their countries.
What about crime?
Background checks don't stop criminals, they wrongfully deny law-abiding citizens their rights to purchase a firearm for self-defense. Two independent studies prove the national background check system has failed to reduce crime. Yale scholar John Lott has found that background checks actually increase rape by 3.6%. Rapists love gun control.
Because of faulty and incomplete records, coincidental name similarities, and system break-downs, background checks routinely wrongfully deny law-abiding citizens their rights to purchase a firearm for self-defense. This empowers criminals, who prefer to attack disarmed victims.
Meanwhile, criminals resort to theft or the black market to get their guns or resort to some other weapon. Amendment 22 would not have stopped Columbine. The suppliers of firearms to Harris and Klebold both would have passed a Brady registration check. Instead of stopping criminals, Amendment 22 provides one more layer of government between you and your Constitutional rights.
Is Amendment 22 Constitutional?
Article 2, Section 13 of the Colorado Constitution states: "The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property... shall be called in question..." NO PERSON! Section 3 states: "All persons have certain natural, essential, and inalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties [and] of acquiring, possessing and protecting property."
Because background checks routinely wrongfully deny law-abiding citizens their right to purchase a firearm, Amendment 22 violates the Constitution. What is a Brady background check but "calling into question" your right to keep and bear arms?
Amendment 22 also places a presumption of guilt upon Colorado gun owners, who are then forced to prove their innocence to the government before exercising their rights.
Where will this lead?
Arnie Grossman, a founder of the anti-gun lobby sponsoring Amendment 22, said the initiative is only the "first step" toward the further erosion of your rights.
If private sales at "gun shows" are subjected to background registration checks, will the "next step" be the total registration of every gun owner? That's the explicit goal of many in the anti-gun lobby.
Amendment 22 is not about stopping crimes. It's not about stopping violence. It's about stopping you. It's about preventing you from protecting your family. It's about a vast registration scheme. It's about government record keeping of you and your family. Despite no mention in the explaining statement, this measure mandates the police to keep records of gun owners.
What can I do to oppose Amendment 22?
First, become a member of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and their PAC. RMGO is the largest gun rights organization in Colorado, and is the main organization opposing Amendment 22. It also was the organization that defeated HB1242, the bill in the legislature to outlaw private sales at gun shows.
To make your generous contribution to the "No on 22" campaign, send your check to "Rocky Mountain Gun Owners PAC," P.O. Box 3114, Denver, CO 80201.
Second, hand this information out to your friends and neighbors. Make sure they understand that Amendment 22 is gun control, not the removal of some little loophole in the law.
Third, get a "No on 22" bumper sticker and yard sign from RMGO PAC (many gun shops have them, or you can call 303-432-3006) and display them immediately.
Freedom is NOT a loophole!
The time to take a stand for your rights is NOW.
