A growing number of cities and counties in Colorado have opted out of a recently enacted state law that forbids people from bringing firearms into “sensitive spaces,” like government buildings and courthouses.

The decisions are motivated by the view that the people who live in those communities are best equipped to manage the safety of their public facilities.

Douglas County was the state’s first locality to push aside the law, approved by the legislature earlier this year as Senate Bill 131. County leaders passed a resolution in mid-May to allow firearms in its government buildings — two weeks before Gov. Jared Polis even signed the bill. Weld County is the most recent, exercising its withdrawal from the law last week.

“I know people who carry a firearm everywhere they go, and for us to tell them we don’t trust you to carry a firearm when you come see us (at Board of Commissioners meetings) is wrong,” said Douglas County Commissioner Lora Thomas. “This is about the citizens being able to protect themselves — this is their constitutional right.”

The law, which went into effect July 1, “prohibits a person from knowingly carrying a firearm, both openly and concealed” at municipal or county buildings, courthouses, polling places, and public or private schools, universities and child care centers. The prohibition also applies to adjacent parking areas. It contains exemptions for law enforcement, military and security personnel, along with some others who carry guns as part of official duties.

Notably, the law provides an escape hatch, permitting a local government to allow the carrying of a firearm in its buildings. But the new restrictions would remain for other types of buildings covered by the law.

There are now about a dozen counties, cities and towns across Colorado that have opted out of the law. They include Teller, Routt, Mesa and Morgan counties and Palmer Lake, Monument and Castle Rock.

Both Aurora and Westminster are discussing whether to do the same.

“I want people who are law abiding and went through the rigor of getting their concealed carry permit to be able to exercise their right to conceal carry,” Westminster City Councilman Dave DeMott said last week. “To me, it’s about personal safety.”

DeMott is bringing an opt-out resolution to the council’s July 22 meeting, but not all of his colleagues are on board. Councilman Obi Ezeadi said he worried the presence of guns in council chambers could intimidate residents into silence during meetings — or dissuade people from running for the council.

“In today’s politically volatile climate, the presence of firearms in City Hall poses a significant threat,” he said. “You can imagine the intimidation (of an audience member) if the person next to them has a gun.”

Ezeadi, a Democrat who last month lost a primary bid for a state Senate seat, said he looks to Westminster’s police force to protect people at public meetings. There’s no way to know what level of training an individual has received in the use of firearms, he said — raising the risk of tragic results, should tempers flare.

“Do we trust our police officers to keep us safe? If we do, this bill makes sense,” Ezeadi said of the new law.

“Not keeping our social graces”

State Sen. Chris Kolker, a Littleton Democrat and an SB-131 sponsor, said the bill was a comfort to some Colorado communities in an age when “we’re not keeping our social graces.”

He said some municipal leaders approached him and other statehouse Democrats to see what lawmakers could do on the topic, given the legal gray areathey’d be stepping into if they tried to enact firearms restrictions at the local level.

The measure is one of a several gun-control bills the Democrat-dominated legislature passed this year.

“We are seeing contentious arguments. We are seeing people come into town halls and school board meetings, and the nature of the discussion has turned negative,” Kolker said. “We feel guns are disruptive — they can cause fear when people want to practice good political discourse.”

Kolker’s bill was far more expansive when it was introduced early in the 2024 legislative session. Its gun prohibition umbrella initially included churches, hospitals, bars, public parks, recreation centers — even zoos.

Lawmakers winnowed it down generally to government buildings — including the state Capitol — polling places and school propertybefore getting the governor’s signature on May 31.

That may still be too much for Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, the gun-rights advocacy group that has sued the governor and various municipalities over the years with claims of government overreach on gun restrictions. Ian Escalante, the group’s director of operations, said it was “seriously considering our options” with SB-131, including a legal challenge.

The law, he said, flies in the face of the country’s presumption of innocence doctrine.

“Deal with the bad actors — don’t treat everyone like bad actors,” Escalante said. “Just because you are in council chambers, your God-given rights to self-defense don’t end where politicians’ feelings begin. The state government is ramming Denver’s agenda down the throats of localities.”

Concealed carry permit holders have to go through a training course on how to properly handle their weapon, Escalante said — giving them an extra level of conscientiousness and awareness of gun safety and firearms laws.

Palmer Lake Mayor Glant Havenar has a concealed carry permit and so do many of her fellow residents in the rural El Paso County town of 2,600. The town board passed an opt-out resolution on June 27.

“People here carry all the time and it’s no problem. In a lot of small towns, people carry every day,” she said. “It’s such a part of their day, they don’t even think about it.”

She sees laws like SB-131 as an overreach by state lawmakers who aren’t adept at distinguishing between the challenges and needs of large Front Range cities and small rural communities in Colorado.

Yes, town trustee meetings in Palmer Lake get heated, Havenar said. But everyone respects everyone else’s right to feel differently and speak out. There is no metal detector to screen people, and two police officers attend the meetings to keep order.

A gun-free protocol would do little to stop a person from committing the unthinkable crime, the mayor said.

“If someone wanted to shoot up the council chambers, you could shoot through the windows,” she said, referring to the decidedly unfortified 110-year-old Craftsman-style town hall. The new law “doesn’t stop the bad guys — it only stops the person following the law.”

But Nick Ehrhardt, a fellow trustee in Palmer Lake and the lone vote against the opt-out last month, said certain places in society simply aren’t appropriate for guns. To him, municipal buildings are considered “sensitive” spaces for a reason.

“I’m going into this Town Hall as an elected member to engage in important dialogue,” he said. “That’s exactly where tempers are going to flare. The last thing I want is that last resort of someone grabbing a gun.”

“Every local government has unique needs”

Tempers in Aurora have flared in a big way in the last few weeks, following the May 25 police killing of 37-year-old Kilyn Lewis, an unarmed Black man who was being sought on suspicion of attempted first-degree murder. Recent City Council proceedings in Colorado’s third-largest city have been shouted down and repeatedly disrupted as protesters have demanded justice for Lewis’ death.

Councilman Curtis Gardner said that in this volatile environment, he’s not worried about “law-abiding gun owners exercising their constitutional right to conceal carry firearms in the council chambers.” Aurora didn’t ban the concealed carry of firearms in city buildings before the new law took effect.

“While I am concerned about the increase in tempers in local government spaces in the last several years, continuing to allow the concealed carry of firearms by law-abiding gun owners isn’t what most concerns me,” he said.

During a study session last week, Gardner introduced a measure that would opt Aurora out of the new state law. He wrote in an email to The Denver Post that many mass shootings — even most — have happened in places where guns aren’t permitted, showing that those laws and policies don’t deter individuals intent on carrying out harm.

“Local municipalities, not the state legislature, should be in charge of security for their buildings,” Gardner said. “Every local government has unique needs and various protocols, and our security practices shouldn’t be the purview of the state legislature.”

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Originally Published: July 15, 2024 at 6:00 a.m.