Tragedy unites Gov. Walker, Colorado Gov. Hickenlooper

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- In the aftermath of the mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado in July of 2012, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker reached out to Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. A month later, the roles were reversed. This time it was Hickenlooper offering support to Walker. Both governors forged a bond, dealing with the tragedy and the aftermath of mass shootings. This weekend, as Milwaukee played host to the National Governors Association summer meeting, the two met again.

"Governor Walker's right.  It does make a difference when you're going through periods like that to have other governors reach out," Gov. Hickenlooper said.

One year since the tragedies of Aurora and Oak Creek, Gov. Walker and Gov. Hickenlooper discussed their approaches to the vexing problem of rampage shootings.

"In our case as you know, after the fact we looked at it and saw in Oak Creek -- we saw sadly something similar driven by domestic violence problems in Brookfield. We saw the outcome for that in our case went beyond just the weapons used, and we raised some serious questions about response to mental health," Gov. Walker said.

Gov. Walker set aside $30 million in his latest budget to fund mental health services. But in Colorado, while mental health was part of it, Gov. Hickenlooper also tackled the "third rail" issue of gun control.

"There was a point to try to keep guns out of dangerous criminals' hands and we did catch a lot of heat for doing universal background checks," Gov. Hickenlooper said.

Gov. Hickenlooper examined gun purchasing stats.

"Do we make a difference? Or as many of the critics said, crooks weren't stupid. They wouldn't go get a background check. Why were we wasting honest people's time and money?" Gov. Hickenlooper said.

Gov. Hickenlooper cited Colorado statistics that showed some criminals are indeed stupid, and that background checks prevented 5,000 gun purchases out of more than 320,000 applications.

Of those blocked gun sales, Gov. Hickenlooper said:

"That to us, suggested that that was a program that worked and needed to be expanded universal. We certainly didn't anticipate it would crate such a firestorm of controversy.  And really obscure what was our primary focus on mental health," Gov. Hickenlooper said.

For the most part, the National Governors Association meeting steered clear of partisan conflict. This was the final day of the summit, and the governors focused on strategies for better cyber-security. Gov. Walker was elected to the nine-member executive leadership team for the NGA for the next year.