Bill that aims to expand Colorado's red flag law passes first contentious committee hearing

DENVER, Colo. — On Tuesday evening, with a 3-2 vote along party lines, Colorado lawmakers advanced the first bill of the session that wrestles with the debate over gun violence prevention and the right to bear arms.

The Senate State, Veterans, & Military Affairs Committee heard roughly four hours of emotional, and at times, furious, testimony regarding Senate Bill 26-004 (SB26-004), which was introduced by State Senator Tom Sullivan, D, District 27.

"My son, Alex, and 11 others were murdered in the Aurora theater massacre on July 20, 2012," said Sullivan.

Sullivan's goal has been to ensure gun violence prevention is a priority at the Colorado State Capitol. He sponsored the original 2019 legislation that enacted the state's red flag law, which allows certain individuals or agencies to petition a court for an Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO).

SB26-004 seeks to expand the groups of people who can petition a court for an ERPO to include health care and education institutions.

An ERPO is a certain kind of civil restraining order that is issued by a court and temporarily prevents a person from purchasing or possessing firearms.

The individual would also have to surrender a concealed carry permit, if applicable. The orders are meant to be filed when an eligible party believes that someone poses a significant risk to themselves or others and possesses a gun.

If a court grants a Temporary ERPO, then the individual in question must surrender their guns for 14 days, and cannot purchase more. A final ERPO may be valid for 364 days, but can be terminated early or extended.

Gov. Jared Polis signed Colorado's red flag law in April 2019. At the time, those who could petition for an ERPO included family or household members, along with law enforcement officers and agencies.

In 2023, the law was expanded to include educators, district attorneys, health care professionals, and mental health care providers.

Now, Sullivan and other stakeholders would like health care professionals, mental health professionals, and co-responders to be added to that list.

"These are the mental health people who go out with law enforcement when there is somebody in a stressful situation... Sometimes, the co-responders are going on a call by themselves. And when they are alerted to a person having firearms, and it has moved to the level that they want to file a petition to temporarily remove firearms from somebody who's going to be a danger to themselves or others, they don't have the ability to do that. They would have to call law enforcement. Law enforcement would have to come back out there, and they would have to start the process all over again," explained Sullivan. "This will move it to allowing the co-responder to have the ability to do it right from there.”

SB26-004 would allow for institutional petitioners, including health care facilities, behavioral health treatment facilities, K-12 schools, and higher education centers on the list of organizations that can petition a court for an ERPO.

"What has been the concern is that, like the Aurora Police Department could file a petition on somebody, but it didn't have to be, even though a particular officer is the one who was doing all of the processing, it wasn't in that officer's name," said Sullivan. "But, that wasn't the case with mental health and regular doctors. They were having to file it in their own name, rather than in the name of the hospital or the group that they worked for.”

Sullivan said the expansion of who can request an ERPO will help with both suicide and domestic violence prevention.

The bill was met with both support and backlash on Tuesday, when groups shared their thoughts on the measure before the committee.

One attendee's outrage brought the entire hearing to a halt.

“My pronouns are AR-15, high-capacity magazine, and I am an ammosexual. I am a veteran with full disability. My disability is a severe mental illness. I am the exact person you want to violate the rights of," said the individual before growing increasingly irate. “You cannot deny me my rights based on my disability. Mental illness is a disability. You don’t get to deny me my rights because I’m disabled. It’s not my fault I’m disabled, and you don’t get to take away my rights because I’m disabled!”

The man began banging on the table and screaming at the committee members, before he was removed from the Old Supreme Court.

Before the outburst, the Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO), Ian Escalante, shared his remarks with the committee. RMGO is a lobbyist group that fiercely advocates for gun rights within Colorado and stands in strong opposition to SB26-004.

“There was little to no due process with that original measure whatsoever," Escalante told Scripps News Denver. "Gun owners feel very uncomfortable about speaking freely in therapy. And I know this because I know people, personally, who will not go to therapy because they're afraid that they're going to get a therapist who has an agenda, who is going to use this law against them.”

Escalante believes the bill is problematic, to say the least, and explained why he does not agree with the idea of an institutional petitioner.

"An institutional petitioner is actually an entity itself. So, it's an entity that employs a licensed therapist, a teacher. It can be a hospital, it can be a school, it can be a school district," said Escalante. "What this is going to do is it is going to absolve responsibility from the individual. Now, instead of being an individual going to the court and saying, 'Well, I think this person should be red-flagged,' they can now hide behind their school district or their college or their hospital, and they can just run it up the chain, go to their attorney, and their attorney can now file these red-flag orders.”

The Claire Davis School Safety Act created a "limited waiver of sovereign immunity for schools," if there is a failure to utilize "reasonable care" that protects students, faculty and staff from "reasonably foreseeable acts of violence."

That act, combined with this bill, has Escalante concerned.

“This new bill that they're trying to push into law, along with the Claire Davis Act, would actually set a perfect stage for schools and school districts to become very, very liberal with red flagging students," said Escalante. “This is going to turn red flag into a legal shield for schools, colleges, universities, overall, the entire education system in the State of Colorado.”

Scripps News Denver asked what Escalante would say to those who believe tragedies may be prevented through the expansion of groups with the ability to request an ERPO.

"I hate to be this person to bring this up, but we passed red flag laws in 2019. We've had multiple, awful tragedies happen since then," Escalante said. "What it is actually doing is it's becoming a weapon for the government."

According to Escalante, the only time guns should be confiscated is following a criminal conviction.

Just before the committee vote, Sullivan addressed a theme throughout testimony from the opposition, saying, “This particular law was taken to court. And a court of the United States, the State of Colorado, has deemed it to be a constitutional bill. So, you’re going to have to find something else to complain about."

The bill's fiscal note does not reflect any cost to the state, which is important to note during a year when the legislature is dealing with a roughly $850 million budget shortfall.

SB26-004 heads to the Senate Floor next, and must still move through the Colorado House of Representatives.

According to the Colorado Firearm Data Dashboard, 692 ERPOs were filed between 2020 and 2024. 478 of those were Temporary ERPOs, which last up to two weeks. There were 371 final ERPOs granted, stretching for up to 364 days.

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