By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project
Does current Attorney General (and candidate for governor) Phil Weiser know there’s been more gun control decisions past Heller?
After reading about a curious statement AG Weiser made during the 8/27 gubernatorial debate. That debate in full is linked below.
The remarks I reference relate to gun control and begin at about the 52:40 mark in the video when candidate Weiser was asked (quoting from the transcript):
“Any laws the legislature has passed you disagree with, and does the state need to go further?”
Candidate Weiser goes on to equivocate for some time before pausing and allowing one of the moderators to come back with a follow up, get an actual answer to the question.
“And I’ll give you 30 seconds, but just real quickly, any laws on the books that you disagree with?”
Weiser then replies with the following:
“Because I’ve worked with the legislature as they’ve crafted laws. I’ve made sure they meet the basic standard Justice Scalia set out in the Heller decision that says reasonable restrictions on access to firearms are consistent with the Second Amendment. Something like a red flag law is a clear reasonable restriction. If you’re a danger to yourself or others, getting access to a firearm is playing with fire. We can avoid it and we can save lives.”
Again, put aside Weiser’s mushy non-answer. Also put aside the fact that he references only one law of many on the books in Colorado. Focus here on what our state’s attorney general, our state’s attorney, the one representing our legal interests, has to say about the state of firearm jurisprudence.
It seems to stop at Heller, a decision that was handed down in 2008.
I’m not a Second Amendment scholar, but I do know enough to know that there has been plenty of decisions coming out of the nation’s highest court since 2008. Not all of it recently, either. As a quick example, note that when Weiser started his second term as AG (2022), the Bruen decision came down.
This leaves open the questions of whether or not AG (and governor-hopeful) Weiser knows of those decisions, intends to follow them, helped advise on current policy in light of them, etc.
I know my opinion. Given that Phil Weiser has long positioned himself as a gun control enthusiast, I would suspect that he knows the new (and binding) precedent and doesn’t care. What I think and what Phil Weiser thinks are two different things, however, so in the interest of fairness, I wrote the AG’s press secretary Lawrence Pacheco and his campaign media email address to ask the below (quoted from my email to them):
“For the sake of clarity, and this is for you Mr. Pacheco, does the AG or the AG’s office include considerations based on newer case law such as Bruen in its advice? Or do they follow what the Attorney General here says and focus on 2008’s Heller?”
“For the sake of clarity, and this is for the campaign, does Mr. Weiser not consider any decisions post-Heller to be valid? If he does, what role do they play with regard to gun laws in Colorado? Does Mr. Weiser believe in some case law and not all? Does he intend to follow all SCOTUS binding decisions?”
As of this writing, I’ve not heard back. I doubt I will, but if that changes, I’ll follow up.
Whether or not I hear, I think it’s reasonable to say that if gun rights are a concern of yours, you have plenty enough in Weiser’s equivocating to tell you all you need to know about how well your rights will be cared for in his administration.
READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT
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