New Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg came to Aurora on Thursday to unveil an ambitious blueprint to reduce gun violence in America, including reinstatement of a federal ban on assault weapons, passage of a nationwide red flag law and the requirement that every gun buyer first get a permit.
The former New York mayor, who for years has poured tens of millions of dollars into gun control efforts across the nation, sat down with gun violence survivors and victims’ family members. The setting: Heritage Christian Center, right behind the Century 16 movie theater — the place where a gunman killed 12 people during a midnight movie in 2012.
In attendance with Bloomberg on Thursday was state Rep. Tom Sullivan, whose son Alex was killed in the theater shooting.
Bloomberg’s plan focuses on five basic tenets: requiring more effective background checks, keeping guns out of the wrong hands, banning assault weapons, spending more on enforcement of gun laws and violence intervention programs, and repealing the 2005 law that granted broad legal immunity to gun manufacturers whose products are used in a shooting.
“In recent years more politicians have begun waking up because the killings are happening in their communities, and in their churches, and in their malls, and in their movie theaters,” the billionaire businessman told an audience of about 25 people. “Their constituents are losing children and their voters are demanding action and voters are electing candidates that are getting things done. And it’s why I’m running for president — just to stop this nationwide madness.”
Sullivan, who sat on a stool next to the candidate, said gun control should not be a partisan issue.
“Who would have thought the controversial thing is just to stop people from getting massacred?” he said. “I mean, what did I miss here?”
Dave Kopel, an adjunct law professor at the University of Denver and research director for the libertarian-leaning Independence Institute, had a different view of Bloomberg and his plans.
“As mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg used gun registration lists to confiscate firearms from law-abiding citizens,” Kopel said. “He would be more credible if he limited his private army of bodyguards to the same arms that he would permit ordinary law-abiding Americans to have.”
Colorado has been at the center of the national gun debate, given its role as the site of several mass killings and school shootings over the last two decades. Bloomberg, who co-founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns, helped fund a 2013 effort by Democratic lawmakers in Colorado to pass gun control measures that limited the number of rounds in magazines and put in place a background checks law.
Bloomberg, through his Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, also injected $2.5 million into Colorado elections in 2018. The group endorsed Democrat Jason Crow in his successful quest for the 6th Congressional District seat that centers on Aurora, spending more than $750,000 in the race.
Bloomberg’s group also played a role in passing Colorado’s controversial red-flag this year. The law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, allows family members or law enforcement to ask a judge to order a person’s firearms temporarily confiscated because they pose an immediate safety threat to themselves or others.
Tom Mauser, who was at Bloomberg’s appearance Thursday, has been fighting for gun control legislation since his son Daniel was killed at Columbine in 1999. He said he hasn’t made up his mind on a presidential candidate to back but he likes Bloomberg’s proposal to require a permit for gun buyers.
“If you have to have a license to purchase, it makes it much more difficult to do (illegal) straw purchases (through a third party),” he said. “He’s been very good on this issue.”
Bloomberg’s plan also calls for limiting the purchase of handguns and semiautomatic rifles and shotguns to people 21 and older, requires gun buyers to wait at least 48 hours before any firearm purchase, and imposes a ban on guns in K-12 schools, colleges, and universities.
Bloomberg, who ranks as one of the world’s richest people, entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination last month. He is competing with more than a dozen Democrats for the chance to take on President Donald Trump in 2020.