Update: 12/22 Colorado breaks mass shooting record (cpr.org) This is a record of shame. The Colorado Springs Q night club mass shooting puts Colorado at the top for mass shooting. In fact, Columbine took place in Colorado and became an ikon, the template for many more mass killers. On a social media FB, I just saw an example of the rationale extremists use to promote denying any sensible gun legislation. It depicted the report of a woman who had a pistol in her purse putting down a wannabe mass killer with a AR 15. She was lucky she was not in Uvalde or in Buffalo, or in Boulder. In Colorado, you can get a concealed weapon permit, and if local city/county laws permit it, open carry. You can defend your home under the "castle doctrine". But why should she or anyone have to have been put in the position to have to defend themselves against a war weapon, anyway? In Uvalde, cops refused to pull their pistols on a mass killer armed with weapons of war.; in Buffalo, the guard pulled his pistol and was shot dead by the mass killer armed with a war weapon. In Boulder, a police officer's first response was shot dead by a war weapon armed shooter who went on to take 9 more lives. Those opposing any constraints on the purchase of weapons of war weapon are extreme and mean, with warped priorities, pitting their absolutist versions of their rights against the rights to life of kids, shoppers, concert, movie, and churchgoers. . .Here was my response to that FB posting:
The warped minds are the extreme gun rightists. They want no restraints on guns, period. Their unrestricted rights are more important than kids and supermarket shoppers. . That is mean and extreme with very warped values and priorities. Rights to gun use are not unlimited, and state, local, and federal case laws restricting access have been ruled and upheld in courts when are challenged Heller, the Supreme Court ruling, does only protects handguns and shotguns to protect home It is no blank check to permit every right to own and use guns, no matter what the NRA says. Nothing is likely to pass Congress that would keep someone 21 and older from buying non-weapons of war. Colorado has some of the most stringent controls in the nation, but it does not forbid purchases of weapons of war by those 18 and older because all neighboring states are an easier purchase where rules are laxer. The age limit is a federal matter for that reason and is useless in Colorado alone. I support the federal age limit raised to 21 for gun purchases for that reason. FYI. I am a gun owner.
. However, when law enforcement is outgunned by school shooters and will not sacrifice their lives to save kids in a classroom, that is both a moral and practical dilemma, but why put law enforcement in that bind, anyway?. To argue forbidding their 18-to21-year-old son or an older guy on the way to settle a score with a doctor just as he would stop by McDonald's, no background check, no waiting period, then that too needs to be addressed both locally and federally. To give the reason for permitting kids 18 to be able to buy a AR 15 to kill praise dogs instead of shotguns,. and not caring about mass killings of people and kids is an example of outrageously warped priorities. The use of a weapon of war as the only way to get rid of varmints is not essential. Shotguns have served that purpose for years out here in the West.
What is s true in Colorado, there is a cooling-off period in buying a handgun, but not in buying weapons of war that can decapitate a child in one blast. One of my first jobs was in a Denver DA's office, leading an investigative unit into cases of white-collar crimes in the 1970s. There had been a rash of murders of individuals by those who bought a pistol in a fit of the passion or hate and killed a spouse or a rival shortly thereafter. The DA at the time, Dale Tooley, went on a crusade against these "Saturday night specials," and sales became locally regulated and later State regulated: purchasers must be 21 years old and subject to background checks. Denver bans the sale of weapons of war and the size of clips, with stricter requirements than some of the State laws. One of my second jobs was as Denver's city clerk, who sat through city council meetings and heard testimony from law officers who complained they were outgunned by weapons by gang members that used large clips Large clips over 15 rounds are now banned in the state and in Denver. My sympathy was and is with the cops. All of this gained new urgency personally when a grandson was in the closest school to Sandy Hook and spent the hours under his desk sheltering in place. The following is also included in a June 13 posting) It became even more urgent when a granddaughter was in the next classroom in a Denver suburb, Centennial when a school shooter at Arapahoe High took his own life. It was then I became acutely aware the survivors of gun violence have wounds, too. Some never heal. She has been seeking professional mental health services ever since and was diagnosed with PTSD. So has her mother, a teacher in the Columbine school district, who witnessed her daughter in another suburban district led by police officers out of the school building. The wounds of survivors and their families can last a lifetime. The Arapahoe High School shooting did result in a law passed in Colorado to hold the school responsible for taking action when they knew or suspected a student was a potential danger, as it was in this case, but the law had flaws. School Administrators Unsure How To Protect Students Under New Law | Colorado Public Radio (cpr.org) Report: Arapahoe High School staff ignored warning signs before 2013 shooting - CBS News Kendrick Castillo's parents sue STEM School Highlands Ranch over 2019 shooting in possible first test of Claire Davis Act (denverpost.com)
Arapahoe High shooting reports detail 3 major failures in procedures – The Denver Post
Excellent source of Denver and Colorado gun laws: Gun Laws in Colorado And The City of Denver (What Is Legal?) (denvercocriminaldefenselawyer.com)
Source of Colorado gun laws :9 questions about gun laws in Colorado, answered | Colorado Public Radio (cpr.org) including recent laws passed in 2022 in the wake of a super market mass shooting in Boulder "Colorado has passed a number of laws within the last decade aimed at addressing gun violence, often in response to mass shootings. Voters in the state chose to close the so-called ‘gun show loophole’ after the Columbine massacre in 1999, requiring background checks for purchases at trade shows.......Colorado does not have a waiting period for gun purchases. It also does not have any specific age restrictions and instead defaults to the federal rules: A person must be at least 18 years old to purchase rifles and other long guns, and 21 to buy handguns.
Coloradans 21 years and older can get a permit for concealed carry, issued through the local sheriff’s office; the state does not require gun owners to give a reason for wanting one. It also honors permits from most other states. No permit is needed to carry openly, although some cities, like Denver, ban it. State law bans the creation of any sort of firearms registry by the government.
The state has a ‘castle doctrine’ allowing people to use deadly force in their own homes, without a duty to retreat..
More recent gun laws in the Colorado include:
- Universal background checks for all sales, including private sales.
- A ban on magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.
- Restrictions on gun ownership for certain domestic violence offenders.
- A Red Flag Law that allows a family member or law enforcement to petition a court to temporarily remove someone’s firearms if they’re deemed a danger to themselves or others. These are known as Extreme Risk Protection Orders.
- A requirement that gun owners securely store their firearms when not in use.
- A requirement that gun owners report to law enforcement any lost or stolen weapons.
- Allowing cities and counties to pass stricter gun laws than the state.
- Preventing people convicted of certain violent misdemeanors from buying a gun for five years.
- Closing the so-called ‘Charleston loophole’ that allowed gun dealers to finish a transaction without a background check if the check wasn’t completed in three days.
- The ‘Vote Without Fear Act,’ which bars the open carry of firearms within 100 feet of a polling location.
- Creating an Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
