In a post yesterday, I reported that Arvada State Sen. Laura Woods referred to Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson and his running mate as “gun grabbers.”
Woods’ comment was confusing because Johnson is an uncompromising gun proponent, opposing virtually every gun-safety proposal out there, including proposals to stop suspected terrorists, whose names appear of the federal “no-fly” list, from buying guns.
Informed of Woods’ gun-grabber comment, Joe Hunter, a spokesman for Johnson, said Woods may be upset about Johnson’s willingness to have a “conversation” about how to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.
“There is no gun grabbing going on here,” said Johnson, adding that Woods’ attack may be “coming from” her opposition to Johnson’s statements about guns and the mentally ill.
Hunter: “Johnson has acknowledged that when someone is clearly mentally ill and clearly capable of doing harm to others and him or herself, [Johnson] has said we should have a conversation about how to handle that, about what to do about that.”
Woods still won’t return my call seeking to know if this is, in fact, why she called Johnson a gun grabber, so we’re forced to speculate.
Woods, who’s running against Democrat Rachel Zenzinger to represent the Arvada/Westminster senate district, stated on Facebook:
Woods: “Dana Kirsch (sp?) Said Johnson isn’t any different than Obama on 2A. How is that a libertarian idea? I’ll never vote for him.”
A search for what “Dana Kirsch” wrote about Johnson, Obama, and the Second Amendment turned up nothing, but I struck gold with “Dana Loesch,” a right-wing gun extremist and talk radio host who tweeted a sentence very similar to Woods’ comment on Facebook:
Loesch: “I’ll post the audio of my past interview with Gary Johnson on 2A. His answers were in line with Obama’s positions on the issue.”
Loesch: “I see a lot of people talking Gary Johnson but after I interviewed him on 2A I found he’s not much different from Obama on gun laws.”
So, it’s pretty clear Woods was actually referring to Loesch, who is also upset with Johnson’s willingness to have a conversation about guns and the mentally ill.
So, by extension, it looks like Woods’ beef with Johnson is about guns and the mentally ill. She sides with Loesch in wanting no conversation about that topic.
I can’t figure out any other reason Woods would be mad at Johnson over his stance on guns, and she won’t return my call to settle the matter.