Let’s see the new gun law at work before adding another.
The Colorado legislature’s latest gun control law hasn’t taken effect yet, nonetheless, Democrats are contemplating additional restrictions. Shouldn’t they wait to see if the red-flag law they enacted this year works as intended?
The Extreme Risk Protection Order law, which will take effect in January, will enable a family or household member or police officer to petition a court to have a person’s firearms seized if he is deemed a threat to himself or others. The well-intentioned law could help the state disarm malicious or mentally ill would-be killers before they can pull a trigger. One can hope the law will do just that and only that.
Hope, however, is not the best basis for enacting laws. Lawmakers should know whether the new law is effective and constitutional before considering additional gun laws. Over the next year, the legislature should collect data on enforcement such as the number of petitions submitted and the number of temporary and yearlong orders granted. Of the temporary orders granted during an ex parte hearing, how many were overturned once the gun owner had his day in court? Did the application of the nebulous “significant risk” standard vary by jurisdiction? To the extent that it is possible to discern, did the law have a positive impact on suicide or homicide rates?
In addition to efficacy, lawmakers need to examine the law’s impact on civil rights. During deliberations, critics, including lawmakers, sheriffs, and lawabiding gun owners, voiced concerns that the law provides inadequate due process and infringes on the Second Amendment right to bear arms and the Fourth Amendment right of citizens to be “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
The law could work as intended. For example, if a person posting violent memes on social media and threatening violence had his guns seized and during the duration of the protection order did not commit violence by other means and ceased wanting to kill people, that would be a lifesaving outcome.
It’s not hard to imagine a less just application of the law, however. Put a vindictive ex-spouse, an overworked officer, an exasperated judge, and an unlikable loudmouth in a courtroom and see if he loses his property and right to bear arms. An arbitrary loss of any person’s civil liberties is a loss for all of us. This redflag law, like the last big gun control law passed by the legislature (the 2013 law restricting gun magazine size) could end up in the courts on constitutional grounds.
For this reason, the legislature should adopt a wait and see rather than an activist approach to gun policy. Yet, the Democrats appear to be stepping on the accelerator. Rep. Tom Sullivan, a proponent of the 2019 red-flag bill, admitted in an interview last week that, “You should see one or two of these types of bills being brought forward, year after year after year, so that collectively, after five or six bills, we’ve tightened things up.” Bill ideas for 2020 include mandatory safe firearm storage in stores and homes, and mandatory reporting of firearm loss or theft.
Since criminals don’t worry about safe storage or reporting, these proposals would only impact law-abiding gun owners and dealers. The necessity of such laws is questionable. A majority of burglary victims whose guns are stolen report the theft to law enforcement, according to Department of Justice statistics. In fact, burglary victims are more likely to report the crime to the police if a firearm was stolen versus other objects of comparable worth. Stolen guns account for a comparatively small percentage of the weapons used in the commission of a crime. Criminals are more likely to get guns illegally through a straw purchase or from the black market. Mass shooters generally obtain firearms legally.
The urge to do something, anything, is understandable. However, the legislature needs to consider the impact of their last gun bill before adding to the legal code. Otherwise, in their zeal to prevent wrongdoing, they may inadvertently cause it.