Senate President John Morse is pushing a bill, SB196, to make gun owners, sellers and manufacturers legally liable for any crimes committed with their guns. As Senator Brophy quipped, that’s like holding Coors responsible for drunk driving.

It’s also not a piece of legislation intended to become law. As Eric Sondermann explained to Lynn Bartels a few weeks ago, it’s little more than a bargaining chip that’s too cute by half.

Eric Sondermann, a Denver political consultant, said one of the approaches Morse might be taking is using the legislation as a bargaining chip.

“He’s in a leadership role and can really look to push the envelope and set the standard for gun legislation pretty far out there,” Sondermann said. “That way when a package of gun bills is passed, it may not include his liability bill, thus allowing his opponents to claim a small victory, but the majority of Democratic gun bills could be passed. It’s kind of like taking one for the team.”

It is all about posture to give Democrats something to vote against so they can seem less bad on guns. Sources say it is a sophmoric and transparent ploy to give Democrats an easy bill to vote against so they can seem reasonable when pushing through the package of other gun control bills.

But if Morse thinks this is going to buy them any cover, he is hilariously wrong. In the first place, his gun liability bill is so extreme that no one takes it seriously. There is zero chance Hick would sign it. Hick isn’t bat shart stupid. The big question is how many Democrats will Morse force to vote for this ploy…that is one lousy vote for those who do…before the bill gets spiked in a phony head fake to gun owners.

The real fight is shaping up around high capacity gun ban and concealed carry on college campuses.

And on both of those issues, Democrats have stepped in a big steaming pile of dung.

Democrat Denver DA Mitch Morrissey summed up the Democrats’ abysmal failure on the gun control issue pretty well yesterday, telling 9News:

DENVER – Denver’s District Attorney has something in common with the group of vocal pro-gun demonstrators who surrounded the state capitol this week: They have pretty low opinions of the gun-control bills being advanced by Democrats in the legislature. 

“As far as what they’re doing, I’m kind of concerned because I think it’s almost like window dressing,” Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey, a Democrat, said. “I think that this is an opportunity in our society to really make an impact [on gun violence,] and I don’t think they’re addressing those things.”

On the college campus concealed carry ban, not one, but two Democrats have made national headlines for their comments about how rape victims will have to fend for themselves without the benefit of a licensed weapon.

Between Evie Hudak’s condescending comments to rape victim Amanda Collins and Joe Salazar’s idiotic analysis that rape whistles and call boxes (which CU removed a few years ago) suffice for protection, Democrats couldn’t have botched their messaging any worse.

On the high capacity magazine ban, the threat of hundreds — if not thousands — of Colorado jobs lost when Magpul Industries pulls out of the state, along with a number of companies reliant upon Magpul’s business, Democrats have also bungled their side of the issue. While Hick has insisted he’ll sign the job-killing bill, it’s clear legislative Democrats have lost the public debate on the issue.

Heading into the session, Morse probably thought he was pretty clever using his liability bill as a sly political maneuver, but with his caucus’s unbelievably bad communication skills, Morse’s bill merely adds to the embarrassing embarrassment his party has been in 2013.

What was once meant to make Democrats in swing districts look moderate, now only makes them look worse.

John Morse’s silly little bargaining chip won’t be able to hide that.