Colorado Gov. Jared Polis Signs Democrat-Sponsored Gun Confiscation Bill

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) signed into law on Friday the Democrats’ gun confiscatory Red Flag legislation.

The legislation allows courts to issue orders for the confiscation of individuals’ guns.

Tribune Ledger News reported that the legislation, House Bill 1177, did not garner a single Republican vote. And more than half of Colorado’s county governments have voiced opposition to the bill, making clear they have no plans to enforce it.

Various Colorado sheriffs took a stand against the confiscation bill. On April 3, 2019, Breitbart News reported that Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams said he will go to jail before enforcing the confiscatory law. He told CNN that his refusal to enforce the law is “a matter of doing what’s right.”

Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith told the Coloradoan the confiscatory aspect of the Red Flag Law could actually cause problems the legislation’s Democrat sponsors did not consider. He said:

This may sound simplistic, but between the firearms locked up in the house, or the individual, the firearms left alone are not a threat. The individual is deemed to be (the threat.) If we take the firearms away, it doesn’t take away the angst they had if we don’t get them help. It probably leaves them very angry and frustrated with government and maybe anybody who was behind issuing this.

Sheriff Smith added, “If it’s a powder keg, it gets worse if we leave. Certainly, we know many other ways for people to act out violently, with edged instruments, with bludgeons, with vehicles, with any number of things.”

California, Florida, and Illinois all have confiscatory Red Flag Laws, yet each state has witnessed high profile shootings of the very kind the laws were supposed to stop. For example, on November 7, 2018, a man shot and killed 12 at Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, California; on August 26, 2018, a man shot and killed three at a mall in Jacksonville, Florida; on January 23, 2019, a man shot and killed five at a bank in Sebring, Florida; and on February 15, 2019, a man shot and killed five at the Henry Pratt Company in Aurora, Illinois.

The Hill reported that Gov. Polis admitted the Red Flag Laws cannot “prevent every shooting,” but he signed the bill, saying, “Today we may be saving the life of your nephew, your niece, your grandchild.”

County governments have pledged lawsuits due to the confiscatory law.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.