Governor Hickenlooper announced yesterday, through an anonymous source to the Associated Press, that he would sign the buffet of controversial gun control measures that made their way through the Legislature, including the magazine ban that will force hundreds of jobs out of the state, along with hundreds of millions of revenue badly needed in a state with 7.3% unemployment.

In a fawning New York Times piece on the issue, the journalist, who clearly lacks a deep understanding of the Colorado political scene, at least was honest about 3 key aspects of John Hickenlooper’s gun grab. 

(1) Hickenlooper did a John Kerry sized flip-flop on guns, one day sounding like Charleton Heston, and the next like a Brady gun banner after too many beers. From Hick only 9 months ago:

[In July Hickenlooper] nevertheless cast doubt on one idea: that tighter gun laws could have prevented the carnage.

“This person — if there were no assault weapons available, and no this or no that — this guy’s going to find something, right?” he said on CNN, referring to the gunman whose rampage killed 12 and wounded dozens. “If it was not one weapon, it would have been another.

(2) Contrary to the spin of the left, Hickenlooper’s gun ban is one of the most extreme, over-reaching in the country.

Eight months later, Mr. Hickenlooper is poised to sign some of the toughest new gun control laws in the nation, capping a journey that has transformed a popular, data-driven Western Democrat who takes his son shooting into an unlikely frontman for bringing new gun laws into the center of the United States.

(3) Liberals don’t give two-shits about Colorado. They just want to prove they can do it here so that they can try to do it everywhere else.

“It absolutely lays a path for the rest of the country,” said Jill Hanauer, a Democratic strategist in Denver. “If you can do it here, you can do it anyplace.”

This is the turning point in Hickenlooper’s first term. 

Hickenlooper can’t claim to be a moderate any more, unless banning guns is now a moderate kind of thing.

Hickenlooper can’t claim to be a uniter, unless attacking law abiding protesters is the stuff of unity. 

Hickenlooper can’t claim to be a quirky kind of westerner. We all know why the Governor caved; Mayor Bloomberg (and “Machine Gun” Eichberg) were in his face and he melted.

Most of all, a Governor who frequently got the benefit of the doubt from “loyal opposition” voices, like ours and those of Republican legislators, won’t anymore.

Unlike Governor Ritter and Governor Owens before, Hickenlooper has gotten a Hall Pass from the opposition because most of us really came to think he was different. Hickenlooper isn’t different. Signing the worst gun control bill in the country is all the proof anyone should need.