new ones that only serve to burden lawful gun owners." Gun Owners of America, which supports gun owners' rights, gave Romney a score of 20% during the 2012 presidential campaign. In the wake of a mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado in July 2012, Romney maintained in a series of interviews that he opposed any new gun control measures. Referring to the alleged perpetrator of the Aurora massacre, Romney said, "This person shouldn't have had any kind of weapons and bombs and other devices, and it was illegal for him to have many of those things already. ... But he had them. And so we can sometimes hope that just changing the law will make all bad things go away. It won't." During his Utah Senate campaign in 2018, Romney said that he is open to enhancing background checks on gun purchases and voting for limitations on gun purchases based on age or psychological evaluations. Debating his primary opponent, Mike Kennedy, in Utah, Romney said that he supports a ban on bump stocks which allow semi-automatic weapons to operate as automatic weapons. In 2022, Romney later became one of ten Republican Senators to support a bipartisan agreement on gun control, which involved a red flag provision, a support for state crisis intervention orders, funding for school safety resources, stronger background checks for buyers under the age of 21, and penalties for straw purchases. Immigration Romney favors increased legal immigration to the United States and opposes illegal immigration, but he would respect the work permits to younger illegal immigrants that President Obama had granted. In 2006, Romney said he would like to see undocumented immigrants register with the government, pay taxes, and apply for citizenship, but that they should not be given any priority or special treatment over immigrants who have applied for citizenship legally. During the 2008 presidential primary campaign, he embraced the support of Arizona's Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known for his very tough stance on immigration. Arpaio served as honorary chair of Romney's Arizona campaign organization and as a campaign surrogate for Romney on immigration. During the 2012 presidential election primary campaign, Romney called Arizona's approach to illegal immigration "a model for the nation." He vowed that on his first day in office as president, he would bring an end to the lawsuits the Obama Administration's Justice Department had brought challenging Arizona's immigration policy.