[...]In Colorado, gun-rights activists wasted no time seeking recalls to oust state Senate President John Morse and three other Democratic lawmakers. The targeted lawmakers weren't necessarily the main advocates for ratcheting back gun rights, but all come from districts with enough Republicans to give opponents hope they can boot out the Democrats and replace them with lawmakers friendlier to guns. Colorado is the only state outside the East Coast to have adopted significant statewide gun controls this year."Colorado seems to be the testing ground for some of the gun measures, so this has national implications," said Victor Head, a plumber from Pueblo who is organizing a recall attempt against a Democratic senator.
In an interview, Morse seemed resigned to facing a recall vote after signatures are verified. He believes national gun-rights supporters are using his district to make a national statement about the political peril officials face if they take on gun control.
"That's what's going on here. They want to take out the Senate president," Morse said.
The organizer of the Morse recall effort, Anthony Garcia, didn't disagree. Garcia doesn't live in Morse's district but in the northern Colorado town of Brighton. Garcia said Morse was targeted not just because of his votes for gun control but because he is a prominent Democrat from a competitive district.
"It's as much about saying Colorado is angry as it is about getting one guy out," Garcia said. "Legislators need to know when citizens are outraged that they can't ignore the people."
The actual numbers for the results of recalls, show why constituents are so willing to wage a recall campaign if they feel their state lawmakers are not representing them as they were elected to do. Joshua Spivak, who tracks recall elections nationwide at the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform at Wagner College in New York provides those numbers.
• At least 169 officials at all levels of government faced recalls last year, up from 151 the year before.
• In Colorado last year, seven recall efforts made it to ballots, all local races, Spivak said. Of those seven, two officials were ousted and two more resigned.
• Nationwide, 108 recalled officials last year lost or left office after a recall. That makes the recall a powerful tool — and one likely to be used more often, Spivak said.
The recall effort underway is just one area that the Colorado gun grabbers are under attack, with over 50 Sheriffs suing the state of Colorado because of the recently passed gun control laws, saying they are "unenforceable and encourage disrespect for the law, which puts both law enforcement and the public in greater danger."
Colorado residents are also seeing 200 direct jobs, 400 supply-chain jobs and the $85 million annually, move to another state as gun manufacturer Magpul, who has joined with the Sheriffs in their lawsuit, continued with their plans to relocate their business to a more gun friendly state because of the gun control laws passed by Colorado Democrats.
HiViz Shooting Systems, which makes sights, recoil pads and other accessories, has also decided to relocate out of Colorado, for the same reasons, taking their jobs and money out of the Colorado economy as well.
Full Wake up America coverage on the Second Amendment battle raging in Colorado can be found here.
