Over a three-year interval starting in 2021, 353 petitions had been filed below Colorado’s pink flag regulation, and 39% of these petitions led to firearms being relinquished, in accordance with analysis our group revealed in Preventive Medication Reviews.
Pink flag legal guidelines are also called excessive threat safety orders. These orders briefly bar people deemed by a choose to be vulnerable to violence from shopping for or possessing firearms.
We discovered that 54.6% of petitions throughout Colorado had been filed by regulation enforcement. These petitions had been granted 94.3% of the time.
Petitions filed by folks outdoors of regulation enforcement had been granted simply 35% of the time.
When the petitions of both sort will not be granted, the people concerned are allowed to maintain their firearms.
Thirty-seven p.c of all petitions in Colorado between 2020 and 2022 had been filed in counties that made proclamations towards pink flag legal guidelines, calling themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries.”
The title Second Modification sanctuaries is modeled after the time period “sanctuary cities,” a time period utilized by native governments taking a stand towards immigration enforcement.
These declarations are supposed to ship a political message towards excessive threat safety orders. Supporters of the declarations are expressing considerations that the legal guidelines violate the U.S. Structure, subvert due course of and undermine residents’ means to guard themselves. Nonetheless, anecdotes have highlighted instances the place protecting orders have been sought and granted in most of the 37 sanctuaries. Our examine supplies knowledge to again up these anecdotes.
In Colorado, fewer petitions are granted in sanctuaries probably as a result of the proportion of orders filed by police is considerably decrease. However pink flag legal guidelines are nonetheless getting used – with some notable variations.
The petitions filed and granted in sanctuary jurisdictions are extra severe than these filed in nonsanctuaries. Practically 1 in 5 concerned a shooter threatening to kill at the least three different folks along with themselves. Greater than 90% included threats to shoot particular folks corresponding to relations, companions or regulation enforcement officers.
In lots of of those instances, the sense of hazard was heightened as a result of the particular person was reportedly experiencing hallucinations, had a historical past of contact with the police or was misusing medicine or alcohol.
Provided that 60% of firearm deaths are suicides, we had been stunned that simply 8% of the petitions included solely threats of self-harm.
Why it issues
Whereas pink flag legal guidelines present promise as a strategy to stop firearm suicides and different violence within the 21 states plus D.C. the place they’re in impact, at the least 1,200 jurisdictions throughout the U.S. have made political declarations towards their use.
When Colorado handed the Deputy Zackari Parrish Violence Prevention Act in 2018, it instantly sparked controversy. The regulation went into impact on Jan. 1, 2020. It initially allowed solely sure folks to file petitions: regulation enforcement officers, plus kinfolk, roommates and co-parents of the respondent. In 2023, it was expanded to permit well being care and behavioral well being professionals, educators and district attorneys to petition.
Practically 4 in 10 Colorado counties have declared themselves Second Modification sanctuaries, however pink flag legal guidelines are nonetheless in impact.
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How we did our work
Our group on the College of Colorado Faculty of Medication’s Firearm Harm Prevention Initiative has been gathering petitions and courtroom paperwork related to each excessive threat petition filed in Colorado since they turned out there.
This allowed us to explain the sorts of instances the place the chance of violence was seen as so extreme that filings had been made. The regulation is just not specific, so this threshold has been fuzzy – leaving a number of discretion to judges. Our knowledge helps shade in when a petition is prone to be introduced and when it’s prone to be authorised.
We had been additionally in a position to examine using excessive threat petitions in sanctuary counties with their use in different counties.
What nonetheless isn’t identified
The usage of excessive threat petitions in counties the place they’re politically unpopular raises additional questions. For instance, do judges in sanctuary counties set a better bar for granting a petition than in different jurisdictions? Does a sanctuary designation discourage regulation enforcement from submitting petitions even after they have advantage?