A proposal to again expand Colorado’s red flag law cleared its first hurdle in the state Senate on Tuesday.
The law, which allows judges to issue extreme risk protection orders, now allows family members, law enforcement, health care professionals and educators to petition the courts to require people to surrender their firearms temporarily. The judge must find the person to be a risk to themselves or others.
Senate Bill 4 would expand that list of petitioners to include behavioral health professionals who are co-responders with police or other authorities in emergencies, as well as health care and educational institutions.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat, passed the State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on a 3-2 party-line vote — likely setting it up to have one of the first lengthy floor debates in the Senate this year.
Sullivan called the bill “a continuation and move to create the perfection of the bill that we passed in 2019,” referring to the original red flag law. Sen. Katie Wallace, a Longmont Democrat, said the bill “will be something that will help keep individuals safer while also respecting the rights they have.” Sullivan, Wallace and Sen. William Lindstedt, a Broomfield Democrat, voted in support of the measure Tuesday.
Supporters of the bill argued it would further help prevent gun violence by focusing on people who are likely to harm themselves or others. From 2020 to 2023, Colorado has outpaced the national per-capita average in firearm-related deaths, largely driven by suicide rates.
Colorado saw an annual average of 11.4 suicides per 100,000 people in that time, versus 7.4 for the rest of the country, according to data from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Extreme risk protection orders are a type of civil restraining order issued by courts if they find that a preponderance of the evidence suggests a person would be at significant risk of hurting themselves or others. Courts can order temporary or long-term prohibitions against firearm access.
Lawmakers and Gov. Jared Polis enacted the first red flag law in 2019. It initially allowed only law enforcement and family or household members of the gun owner to file a petition. State officials expanded who could file the petitions in 2023 to include licensed health care professionals and educators.
“Just the ownership of a gun doesn’t make you a threat to the public,” Sullivan said. “It is the things that you say and do, and those things need to be notated by people in positions of authority.”
Gun-rights advocates assailed the proposal as a further encroachment on the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, after years of new gun-control laws passed in Colorado, and an infringement of due process rights.
“What we’re doing here should alarm every person who understands why this country exists in the first place,” said Teddy Collins, a Colorado Springs gun store owner and vice president of the Colorado State Shooting Association. He warned this proposal would “strip Americans of their constitutional rights without (committing) a crime, without a conviction and without a fair hearing.”
State Sen. Lynda Zamora Wilson, a Republican from the Air Force Academy, said the bill “undermines the Second Amendment” by expanding the ability to confiscate firearms. She and other opponents raised concerns that people could file malicious red flag orders as retribution.
“This bill will make it easier for people with bad intentions to take away our rights while making it harder for people with good intentions to defend themselves or their families,” Zamora Wilson said. She and Sen. Rod Pelton, a Cheyenne Wells Republican, voted against the measure.
Sullivan said the issue of malicious petitions has been nearly non-existent since the law went into effect and that such attempts have been quickly adjudicated. He also noted the law has survived legal challenges to its constitutionality.
Nearly 700 extreme risk protection orders have been requested statewide since Polis signed the original bill, according to data collected by the CDPHE. Of those, 478 petitions were granted on either a temporary or long-term basis.
SB-4 still needs to pass the full Colorado Senate before it goes to the House for consideration. Democrats have nearly 2-to-1 majorities in both chambers of the legislature.
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