Denver Post:

In time, President Barack Obama and Gov. John Hickenlooper may be considered the greatest gun salesmen since Remington and Winchester. And, in turn, they could be viewed as colossal contributors to federal and state habitat and wildlife programs.

According to a Congressional Research Service report published this spring by natural resource and economic policy specialists M. Lynne Corn and Jane G. Gravelle, fears spurred from “recent debate over guns, gun rights and gun-related violence” have generated a spike in sales of guns and ammunition. As a result, the federal excise tax known as the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937, which funds state projects to benefit wildlife resources and hunter education, reached a record $555.3 million in fiscal year 2012, an increase of 43 percent over the $388 million generated the year before.

“With reports of surges in gun sales due to current controversies over guns rights and gun-related violence, substantially more funds seem likely to be available in FY2014,” the report states.

Funny enough, the previous single-year record for the excise tax placed on guns, ammunition and archery equipment was $474 million in 2009-10, which was credited primarily to Obama’s first election.

There is a poetic justice, from the wildlife management perspective, in record funds appropriated to our state in the face of a threatened boycott of hunting in Colorado this fall in protest of gun control laws recently signed by the governor. Even after accounting for a 5 percent federal cut because of sequestration, Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s slice of the Pittman-Robertson pie will bump up from $9.3 million in 2012 to $13.1 million in 2013.

Although any impact of a boycott isn’t likely to be known before next year, the current gush in gun and ammunition sales offers promising compensation for any loss of income from licenses. It is important to recognize, though, that Pittman-Robertson funds must be used specifically for projects benefiting wildlife resources and hunter education programs.

This is a fascinating analysis on multiple levels.  To the author, it’s “poetic justice” that Colorado would benefit from the gun laws and boycott.  But only someone who thinks this way would even consider equating justice and economic benefit with revenues to the government for hunter education programs and one department’s slice of the pie versus other departments.

To be sure, there are many small businesses who will suffer in the wake of the boycott, which is more far reaching that the author admits or perhaps even knows.  Additionally, people are purchasing guns for reasons that the author would find troublesome rather than for hunting.

But time and change will serve to educate both the author of this analysis and the authors of the new gun laws.  I am double minded concerning the courtroom challenges to the Colorado gun laws.  On the one hand I want them to succeed, and on the other hand I want Colorado to fail in the wake movement towards totalitarianism.  I am not saying that I want Colorado gun laws to fail – I am saying that I want Colorado to fail.  There is no better or surer teacher than consequences.