“When I went to that movie theater in Aurora in 2012…We decided that we were going to go out and take on the NRA and we passed as a purple state universal background checks. We limited magazine capacity. We did the basic work that, for whatever reason, doesn’t seem to be done in Washington.” 

–former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper

The former Colorado governor presents a rosy account of actions taken after the Aurora theater shooting. The Colorado Sun has described his account of his record as “requiring a series of asterisks.”

He came late to the issue of gun control, advocates said.  Immediately after the shooting, he expressed doubt that tougher gun control laws would make a difference. “This person, if there were no assault weapons available, if there were no this or no that, this guy’s going to find something, right? He’s going to know how to create a bomb,” he said on CNN.

Hickenlooper eventually came around the idea of tightening guns laws.

But, after a political firestorm erupted when Colorado lawmakers passed measures expanding background checks for gun purchases and limiting magazine sizes to 15 rounds, he distanced himself. “One of my staff had committed us to signing it,” he told the sheriffs of his support of the law limiting high-capacity magazines. One gun-control advocate told the Sun that the comments made her “sick.”