Massacre-hardened Colorado a gun control test case

DENVER (AP) — After the annual late-summer harvest on his farm in the eastern reaches of Colorado, Greg Brophy has a few friends over, breaks out the handguns and semi-automatic rifles and mows down some rotten watermelons.

The Republican state senator’s melon shoot is a fixture on the political calendar in his rural district near the Nebraska border and a window into the culture of gun ownership in a state that cherishes its frontier heritage.

One of the worst and most high-profile school massacres in American history — the 1999 Columbine shooting that killed 12 students and a teacher — did l...