Add Attorney General Phil Weiser to the growing list of elected officials who shift blame away from criminals toward corporations.

In the five years since state government has been firmly in the control of the Democratic Party, Colorado’s laws and enforcement have taken a decided turn away from personal responsibility for criminals. Instead of discouraging criminal conduct through accountability and punishment, the legislature has consistently moved to minimize the consequences for lawlessness and to redefine responsibility for it.

This year, the liberals in charge of the gold dome pushed through a bill making it easier to sue firearms manufacturers and sellers. Their extremist bill treats the firearms industry differently than all others. For instance, if a drunk driver plows his Chevy into a family and kills them, nobody sues Chevy. The car manufacturer can defend against any claim of liability by pointing to the intervening cause of the criminal in misusing (driving drunk) their otherwise properly functioning product.

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Our “guns are the problem” legislature stripped that defense from the gun industry. In Colorado, even if a person misuses an otherwise properly functioning firearm to commit a violent crime or kill themselves, the gun manufacturer cannot avoid liability by pointing to that individual’s conduct.

Rather, this Second Amendment-hating legislation seeks to destroy an industry by shifting responsibility for crime away from the offenders who commit it. It is the gun manufacturer’s fault.

The bill comes after back-to-back legislative sessions in which the Democrats in charge passed laws legalizing the possession of firearms by tens of thousands of convicted felons, including drug dealers and car thieves. Each of these bills was supported by AG Weiser.

It comes as no surprise, then, that Weiser has joined 17 other AGs from across the country in sending a 10-page letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to condemn car thieves… er, wait… no, not car thieves – to condemn Kia and Hyundai. The AGs demand the NHTSA force the car makers to engage in a costly recall of their vehicles across the country, not because they are unsafe by design – in fact, they have great safety ratings. Instead, Kia and Hyundai are to be bent to the will of government because their cars have become too easily stolen, due in large part, to a viral TikTok video detailing how criminals can start them without a key.

It is the car manufacturer’s fault.

Neither the letter nor most of the news outlets reporting on it reveal all 18 AGs signing the request for federal intervention are Democrats. Democrats who hail from states with some of the highest rates of car theft in the U.S. The letter does not detail the increasingly forgiving laws of these states that provide little disincentive to steal cars over and over again. Eight of the 10 states with the highest rate of car theft in America have Democrat AGs; six of those are signatories to the “blame the car maker” letter.

It is unclear if Weiser or the other left-leaning, criminal justice reform-minded AGs have also sent letters demanding the videos be removed from public access at the threat of legal action by the state’s top government lawyer.

Remember Weiser has presided over the largest law enforcement law firm in the state during a time Colorado has surged to No. 1 as the worst state in all of America for car theft. And yet, during his time as AG, despite detailing the risks and costs associated with rampant car theft and agreeing with the other left-wing AGs that stolen vehicles “presen(t) a serious safety issue nationwide,” Weiser has never advocated for stiff bonds or mandatory incarceration for car thieves. Not even the repeat ones. Instead, during the last election cycle, Weiser famously endorsed an approach to addressing car thieves this way:

“after someone commits a third or fourth car theft in, say, three months, they should be kept in (jail) with a really high bond, because you got a sense they are going to get out… commit more crimes… In Jeffco, that’s what they do.”

Insightful.

The letter to Kia and Hyundai allows those ambivalent-on-crime AGs to look like they are doing something about runaway car thefts without having to come to grips with the real issue. It is not how easy it is to steal a car; it is that criminals are excused and forgiven for their repeated and intentional misuse of cars and guns and fill-in-the-blank, while those progressives in power focus their ire and attention on law-abiding manufacturers.

I presume Weiser will next start suing marijuana producers for the next high driver who kills someone on our highways.

George Brauchler is the former district attorney for the 18th Judicial District. He also is an Owens Early Criminal Justice Fellow at the Common Sense Institute and president of the Advance Colorado Academy, which identifies, trains and connects conservative leaders in Colorado. He hosts The George Brauchler Show on 710KNUS Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Follow him on Twitter: @GeorgeBrauchler.