(CBS4) – For the first time, a judge has denied a request to take away a man’s guns under Colorado’s new red flag law. A Limon woman claimed a man who she had a relationship with threatened her with a gun and filed the request.
Since the law took effect, the red flag law has had many gun owners seeing red. At least four requests have been filed since the first of 2020; CBS4 is aware of them being filed in Denver, in Larimer County and this one — in Lincoln County.
Many gun owners, like Jak Gruenberg, despise it.
“Red flag laws just allow for harassment of legal gun owners,” he said.
The law allows guns to be taken away from those who present a danger to themselves or others. The decision is up to a judge.
CBS4 obtained the request for a temporary extreme risk protection order filed in Limon. A woman wrote she was getting “verbal and physical threats” with a handgun from the man identified in the order.
(credit: CBS)
She said he had a problem with alcohol and marijuana. The judge denied the request to take his guns.
“I think it’s a good thing. I think any other new law you’re going to have a lot of case law to determine exactly where the lines are,” said Gruenberg, a gun owner not associated with the case.
Lincoln County is one of the many counties that has indicated it would not honor the red flag law.
But the denial led state Rep. Alec Garnett, a co-sponsor of the bill, to say this shows it is being applied properly.
Gun owners at Bristlecone Shooting, a range in Lakewood, told CBS4 they are split on that.
“I don’t think it’s going to be applied fairly. Anybody can say pretty much what they want about anybody else,” John Shearer told CBS4’s Rick Sallinger.
Rory Coyne, who bought his first gun over the weekend, had a different view.
“Well if a person is not right in the head they shouldn’t have a gun — if they re sick in the head,” he said.
The judge’s order explaining the denial of the woman’s red flag request was not made public at the time of CBS4’s request.
This was done to create the impression that “Red Flag Laws” aren’t just a blatant gun confiscation scheme, and that some requests will actually be denied.
This will make headlines across the country, and it will probably be the last time it happens.