In the days after the July 2012 Aurora shootings, Governor Hickenlooper sounded like the old moderate he used to be. In fact, he sounded like a Republican legislator speaking from the well during the gun ban debate less than two weeks ago.

Here’s a quote that seems to have gone the way of the dustbin of history, along with Hickenlooper’s moderate credentials. But we thought it was worth bringing back up the day before Hick puts pen to paper and signs away the political image he spent the better part of a decade crafting.

“We need to recognize that we can’t allow people that are aberrations of nature to take away the joys and freedoms we enjoy.”

Check the full CNN interview and wonder how the hell a politician can occupy this rhetorical space in July and then nine months later sign one of the most anti-gun bills in the country that he himself admitted would do nothing to stop mass shooters: