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Colorado’s guidance to police on the red flag law doesn’t include what to do if someone won’t give up their guns

Jesse Paul, Colorado Sun
A Douglas County Sheriff's Office patrol vehicle outside of STEM School Highlands Ranch following a shooting that left one student dead and eight others wounded on Tuesday, May 7, 2019. (Jesse Paul, The Colorado Sun)

The board overseeing law enforcement training and procedures in Colorado has released its model policy for how police departments and sheriff’s offices should use the new, controversial red flag gun law when it goes into effect Jan. 1. 

The law allows a judge to order temporary seizure of guns from someone deemed a significant risk to themselves or others. But the guidance didn’t include advice on what to do when someone refuses to give up their firearms.

That was a major concern of critics of the law, who said officers will be subjected to an extra level of risk as they carry out a court order to take away people’s guns who aren’t willing to give them up.



The six-page guidance issued Dec. 1 by the Colorado Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, known as POST, deals only with how law enforcement should accept, store and return guns seized under the law. 

The Colorado Attorney General’s Office, which houses the POST Board, says language in the red flag law limited the panel to forming a model policy for only those three parts of the legislation.

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