{"id":2452022,"date":"2019-12-09T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=317366"},"modified":"2019-12-09T23:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T06:00:00","slug":"gun-law-highlights-differences-between-pitkin-garfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/gun-law-highlights-differences-between-pitkin-garfield\/","title":{"rendered":"Gun law highlights differences between Pitkin, Garfield"},"content":{"rendered":"
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While it may come as a surprise to no one who lives in the Roaring Fork Valley, Pitkin County and Garfield County have diametrically opposite views of the state\u2019s new red-flag gun law.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in a minority among our sheriffs, but I happen to think it\u2019s a good thing,\u201d said Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo. \u201cIf there\u2019s any sign of violence related to mental illness, then we should protect others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario said he lobbied against the law from the beginning and prompted Garfield County commissioners to pass a resolution in April declaring the county a Second Amendment \u201cpreservation county.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI oppose it,\u201d Vallario said. \u201cI don\u2019t like the fact that \u2026 it puts law enforcement in a position to take away someone\u2019s guns without due process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, allows a law enforcement officer or a family member to petition a judge to take guns away from a person exhibiting troubling or dangerous behavior toward themselves or others. The petitioner must present evidence of the threat, which can lead the judge to take the weapons for 14 days.<\/p>\n

After 14 days, the court must schedule a hearing to address continuing the seizure for a year.<\/p>\n

The person whose guns were taken can petition the court to return them once during the yearlong seizure if it is granted. Noncompliance with the law, named after a Douglas County deputy killed while responding to a domestic dispute, is a misdemeanor crime.<\/p>\n

Vallario said his main problem with the law is that a judge is left to decide if a person is competent to possess guns without the involvement of a mental health professional. That is not the case, for example, when a person is deemed incompetent to stand trial in Colorado, which is determined by state psychiatrists, not a judge, he said.<\/p>\n

The red-flag law also doesn\u2019t provide money or direction for treatment or crisis intervention and puts law enforcement officers in a dangerous position if someone refuses to relinquish their weapons, Vallario said.<\/p>\n

In his opinion, the law violates both the Second Amendment and the Fourth Amendment, which guards against unreasonable search and seizure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no due process and it can violate someone\u2019s constitutional rights,\u201d Vallario said.<\/p>\n

DiSalvo, on the other hand, said he doesn\u2019t think the Second Amendment applies and that the red-flag law is all about community protection.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a hard time (connecting) the red flag law with the Second Amendment,\u201d he said. \u201cI think there should be a firewall like this.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone is clearly demonstrating violent behavior or mental illness, take away their guns until they\u2019re deemed safe. But in the meantime, you have to protect people who might be affected by (the possible gun violence).\u201d<\/p>\n

DiSalvo said he thinks that anyone who falls under the red-flag law would likely already be covered by state mental health laws that allow law enforcement to take someone into custody so they can be examined by mental health professionals at a psychiatric hospital. If that happens, it would make it easier to seize guns owned by the person, he said.<\/p>\n

While Garfield County commissioners declared their support for the Second Amendment in their April, nonbinding resolution, Pitkin County commissioners have been silent on the subject of the red-flag law.<\/p>\n

And while some Colorado sheriffs and counties have refused to enforce the red-flag law and declared themselves \u201cSecond Amendment sanctuary counties,\u201d Vallario and Garfield County haven\u2019t gone that far.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t defy the law,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lawful law and I will comply with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

How exactly that happens, especially when a person refuses to give up their guns, is another story.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll comply with it, but how we do that is the interesting thing,\u201d Vallario said. \u201cThere are ways we will handle it based on the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that, in a nutshell, was essentially the legal advice dispensed by the Colorado Attorney General\u2019s Office last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s up to each law enforcement agency to determine how to respond to an individual who refuses to surrender a firearm,\u201d a spokesman for Attorney General Phil Weiser told The Colorado Sun on Tuesday. \u201cIt would likely depend on the factors of each case and available resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

The advice was in response to a model red-flag law policy issued last week by the Colorado Peace Officer\u2019s Standards and Training Board, which provided no guidance on what to do if someone refuses to give up their guns.<\/p>\n

Jeff Cheney, 9th Judicial District Attorney, said that while he understands the impetus for the law, he, like Vallario, is bothered by a perceived lack of due process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a concern rooted in trying to protect the community,\u201d Cheney said. \u201cI do believe in a person\u2019s right to bear arms and when you seek to deprive someone of that, you need due process.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Cheney\u2019s office won\u2019t be charged with enforcing the law because it is civil, not criminal, he said.<\/p>\n

Aspen City Attorney Jim True, who would provide legal advice on the law to city officers, said he believes the red-flag law is meant to protect communities and that it is a legal law. It is governed by the same U.S. Supreme Court precedent that allowed the Aspen City Council to recently ban guns in city buildings, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a legal process standpoint, (the red flag law) is relatively simple,\u201d True said. \u201cBut from an actual execution standpoint, I don\u2019t really have any comment about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While it may come as a surprise to no one who lives in the Roaring Fork Valley, Pitkin County and Garfield County have diametrically opposite views of the state\u2019s new red-flag gun law. \u201cI\u2019m in a minority among our sheriffs, but I happen to think it\u2019s a good thing,\u201d said Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2452022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 03:12:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2452022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2452022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2452022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2452022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2452022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}