(The Center Square) – Colorado lawmakers will consider another update to the state’s “Red Flag” gun law this week in a Senate committee.
The measure is also called the Extreme Risk Protection Order law.
Senate Bill 26-004 was one of the first bills introduced this year when the General Assembly (the Colorado legislature) convened on Jan. 14. Under the current law, family members, law enforcement officers, district attorneys, medical and mental health providers, and educators can petition a court for an ERPO to remove firearms from an individual thought to pose a risk.
Introduced by Sen. Tom Sullivan, D-Centennial, and Rep. Meg Froelich, D-Englewood, SB 26-004 seeks to expand the existing Red Flag law by adding “institutional petitioners” including health care facilities, behavioral health facilities, schools, and colleges/universities to the list that can ask a court for an ERPO.
“We have and will continue to work to make the Colorado ERPO legislation a vital, life-saving priority,” Sullivan said in an email statement to The Center Square. “The petitioners added in SB26-004 have asked to be included in the legislation, and we have worked with the Attorney General’s office to make it happen.”
Democratic lawmakers including Sullivan also expanded the list of petitioners for ERPOs in 2023.
According to data from the Colorado Office of Gun Violence Prevention, 164 ERPO petitions were filed in 2024, with 80.27% being granted.
SB26-004 is scheduled to be heard on Tuesday by the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.
The initial Red Flag law was widely panned by Republicans and gun rights groups who criticized it for lacking due process protections and paving the way for unwarranted firearm seizures.
Huey Laugesen, executive director of the Colorado State Shooting Association, the state’s National Rifle Association affiliate, told The Center Square in an email that the organization believes the state’s Red Flag law violates the U.S. Constitution’s Second, Fourth and Fifth Amendments “as it authorizes various individuals (police, family members, healthcare professionals, etc.) to petition for the confiscation of an individual’s lawfully-owned firearms without a hearing. Such a policy represents a total lack of due process.”
CSSA is urging its members to testify against the bill at Tuesday’s committee hearing.
“Senate Bill 26-004 only makes things worse, extending this authority to institutions like schools and hospitals, co-opting trusted institutions into anti-gun surveillance operations,” Laugesen added. “The United States Supreme Court has made clear that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right, and Colorado’s millions of gun owners are not second-class citizens. We deserve the same medical-privacy protections and due-process rights as any American citizen.”
Last legislative session, Sullivan and Froelich also cosponsored controversial legislation that bars the sale or purchase of most semi-automatic rifles and shotguns that take detachable magazines unless an individual obtains a “firearms safety course eligibility card” and completes an extensive firearm education course.
The bill was signed into law last April and takes effect on Aug. 1.
