It’s rather stunning to see, and like the Paul filibuster was, important to hear: it turns out that there are left lawmakers out there who will stand on principle, and have now acknowledged publicly on the floor of the CO Senate that they will “willfully” disobey this law should it pass — arguing, per Joseph Story, that they not only have the right to protect themselves, their families, and their property, but they have that duty to do so, as well.

And they refuse to be less-prepared than the criminals who will disobey such bans.

The Josh Marshalls of the world want to farm that duty to protect one’s family and property out to the police exclusively (against the advice of many rank and file LEOs and most sheriffs); and these faux-moral quivering beta-males, in order to hide their own dereliction of personal and family duty, along with their own cowardice, demand to be shielded from the scrutiny of that cowardice by legislative bans that force those with the natural proclivity to confront danger — the sheepdogs — into a position where they cannot be readily distinguished from the timid, the sheep.

That is, the Josh Marshalls of the world feel small and weak, and they despise those who don’t. So they rationalize and dissemble and create phony emotional arguments as a way to camouflage their own failings, then legislate to make sure that those failings are better hidden.

It’s despicable. And I mention it here the way I do to let them know that we know.

Because we see them for who and what they are, much as they try to hide it away, and as much as they rely on the consensus of their similarly afflicted peers to bolster their self-esteem and pretend that they are noble and good, rather than cowardly, despotic, and craven.

****

update: Republican Senators try to push through a third-reading amendment that would require “evidence-based decision making” — that is, a study of the likely effects of such a ban on high-cap magazines by a commission that would review national studies on the issue of magazine bans, and perhaps conduct studies peculiar to Colorado, where the rural areas are so vast.  Citing a federal government study that noted that any ban that included exemptions or grandfathering — that is, anything short of confiscation — would have no effects on crime or public safety, the Colorado Senate Republicans then pointed out that the bill under consideration, by those very standards of evidence, would serve only to create more criminals.

Sadly, evidence-based decision making — on a bill that is of compelling interest to the citizens of Colorado — is not en vogue with Colorado Democrats, who stand opposed to the amendment (and in fact, the offered amendment prompted one of the few times we’ve heard from any Democrats during this “debate”).  They’ve received their marching orders from Biden and Obama and Bloomberg, et al., and they can’t let anything like “evidence” stop the momentum of a good crisis.

Amendment rejected 18-17.  With only two Democrats voting for it, and the Senate President casting the deciding vote.

****

Magazine ban passes 18-17, with 2 Democrats buying re-election cover.

Let the Governor sign it, and let the criminalization of lawful citizens begin.

I will not comply.  Nor, she said, will my state Senator.  And she wasn’t alone.