For the Democrats running for governor in Colorado, gun bans take center stage

Following the slaughter of 17 people at a Florida high school, Democrats running for governor in Colorado are making gun laws an issue in a race where policy divisions among the wide field of candidates are few.

One gubernatorial hopeful already changing course is Congressman Jared Polis, who in 2013 dismissed a proposed federal law that would have banned more than 100 different assault-style weapons, saying doing so would “make it harder for Colorado families to defend themselves and also interfere with the recreational use of guns by law-abiding Coloradans.”

Five years and more mass shootings later, Polis this week became an original sponsor of a new bill in Congress to ban assault-style weapons that include AR-15s, AK-47s, and shotguns with pistol grips or revolving cylinders, among many others.

“As our communities have experienced more and more mass shootings, we cannot ignore the fact that assault weapons are a common theme in almost all of them,” Polis said in a statement to The Colorado Independent.

Read more: http://www.coloradoindependent.com/168873/colorado-democrats-governor-guns-weapons