Second Amendment Under Siege as Colorado Lawmakers Target Gun Owners

On March 1, 2024, Nephi Cole, Greg Walcher, Jim May, and Bill Rutledge joined the show. Cole warned that HB 24-1270 requires firearm owners to purchase insurance that does not exist, while HB 24-1349 proposes an 11% tax on firearm purchases, both effectively creating poll taxes on constitutional rights Walcher exposed Colorado’s $14 billion rail scheme as destined to repeat California’s train-to-nowhere failure, noting rail ridership.

Firearm Insurance Mandates and Poll Taxes on Constitutional Rights

Start listening at 17:38 – Hour 1

Nephi Cole, director of state affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, sounds the alarm on two dangerous Colorado bills targeting gun owners. House Bill 24-1270 would require all firearm owners to maintain insurance that does not yet exist on the market, effectively creating an unconstitutional poll tax on Second Amendment rights. Cole explains that low-income Coloradans, including single mothers seeking protection in increasingly dangerous neighborhoods, would be forced to choose between exercising their constitutional rights and paying rent.

Even more troubling, House Bill 24-1349 proposes an additional 11% tax on all firearm purchases, a measure Cole calls “uniquely un-American.” The bill would encourage an underground market as buyers simply purchase firearms in neighboring states like Wyoming and legally transport them home. Cole emphasizes that the right to self-defense pre-exists government and cannot be legitimately taxed or regulated away.

“This disproportionately harms people that don’t own a home, people that are renters, people that live paycheck to paycheck because they have to decide now, are they going to pay a luxury tax in order to exercise right to self-defense? Or are they going to pay the rent?”

Nephi Cole, Director of State Affairs, National Shooting Sports Foundation

Front Range Rail Scheme Destined to Repeat the Train-to-Nowhere Debacle

Start listening at 34:18 – Hour 1

Greg Walcher, former Colorado Director of Natural Resources and author of Smoking Them Out, exposes the Front Range Rail project as a colossal waste of resources destined to repeat California’s train-to-nowhere debacle. California’s initial $10 billion bond has ballooned to an estimated $100 billion cost, producing only a partial line between Bakersfield and Fresno that nobody wants to ride.

Walcher presents damning statistics: commuter rail ridership has plummeted from 10% in the early 1960s to barely 3% today, while automobile commuters have tripled from 40 million to 120 million. The proposed $14 billion Colorado project would use existing freight tracks, automatically disqualifying it as high-speed rail. Western cities evolved around the automobile, with neighborhoods of houses stretching for miles with no logical station locations. Walcher argues taxpayers in Burlington, Grand Junction, and rural Colorado should not subsidize a system they will never use.

“The problem with free and mobile society is you can’t make people live where they don’t want to live, and you can’t stop them from living where they do. And so I suppose there are some people who don’t think we ought to have a free and mobile society.”

Greg Walcher, Former Director of Natural Resources, Colorado

Ranching Heritage Meets Modern Markets

Start listening at 63:49 – Hour 2

Jim May of Lavaca Meat Company announces an exciting new program launching April 1st, offering quarter, half, and whole beef purchases online. Working with USDA-inspected facilities in Otis, Colorado, the May family provides 21-day aged premium beef cut into 100-pound boxes featuring inch-and-a-half steaks, ribeyes, New York strips, roasts, and ground beef. This option allows families to stock up for six months to a year while saving money compared to retail prices.

May, a third-generation cattleman and cowboy poet, treats listeners to original verses celebrating ranching life and his family’s dedication to quality beef. The store remains open at Main and Nevada in historic downtown Littleton, maintaining the excellence and quality that defines Lavaca Meat Company.

“At Main and Nevada, you will find Lavaca meat. So stop by sometime and give yourself a treat. It’s the spirit of Littleton. It’s a song on the street.”

Jim May, Lavaca Meat Company

Masking Children Robbed a Generation of Educational Foundation

Start listening at 75:18 – Hour 2

Colonel Bill Rutledge, a 95-year-old retired Air Force veteran who lost his wife Virginia to COVID in February 2021 after 69 years of marriage, presents extensive research on how pandemic policies devastated children’s education. Masks prevented young children from seeing their teachers’ faces, blocking the crucial visual learning of pronunciation, communication skills, and social development that forms the foundation for all future education.

Colonel Rutledge, who himself survived childhood scarlet fever, measles, mumps, whooping cough, chicken pox, and double pneumonia before first grade, emphasizes that COVID posed minimal threat to children. He wrote repeatedly to Poudre School District’s superintendent advocating against masks and school closures, never receiving a single reply. Remote learning failed millions of students who lacked proper technology at home or simply never engaged with online instruction.

Rutledge highlights Patrick Henry College in Virginia as a model institution that never closed, never required masks except in administrative hallways, required no shots, and experienced only five sick students at any one time in 2021. This stands in stark contrast to schools that prioritized administrators and teachers over children’s developmental needs.

“The mask precluded their opportunity to see their teachers and their peers. They could not communicate through their mask. They couldn’t understand what the teacher was saying. The mask was so negative, and yet it was not truly needed at all.”

Colonel Bill Rutledge, Retired United States Air Force