CU Independent reporter Christy Lambert summarizes former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s speech at CU Boulder’s University Memorial Center.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Ryan Ellis at ryan.ellis@colorado.edu.
Democratic presidential candidate Martin O’Malley made no secret about his reasons for being in Boulder, Colorado. O’Malley made sure that gun control was mentioned in coverage of the third Republican presidential debate held on the CU campus. O’Malley held a talk this afternoon on the roof of the UMC, to which he invited families affected by various mass shootings to speak.
“I’m in search of a Republican candidate with enough backbone to take on the NRA,” O’Malley said, to resounding applause from the crowd of about 150 students and reporters. He went on to speak about the success of gun control policies in Maryland, saying, “When we banned the sale of assault rifles in Maryland, not a single hunter lost his gun.”
Although the debate focuses on Republicans, O’Malley took the opportunity to find common ground between his own views and those held by a majority of the GOP. The phrase ’common sense,’ which is typically associated with Republican policies, came up six times during O’Malley’s talk. O’Malley also stated that when the majority of the population is voting for stricter gun laws, the government cannot be against it.
According to a Gallup poll conducted earlier this month, 55 percent of Americans “say laws on gun sales should be more strict than they are now.”
