On Monday’s “CNN Tonight,” Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) acknowledged he doesn’t “have any real facts” about how the nightclub shooter in Colorado Springs was able to obtain a firearm despite Colorado’s red flag laws, but there should be “a new and higher level” for red flag laws.
Host Alisyn Camerota said, “Senator, explain why Colorado’s red flag laws didn’t stop someone like that from having guns.”
Hickenlooper responded, “Well, I don’t have any real facts. I was told this morning that the sheriff down in Colorado Springs said that — right when the red [flag] law was passed — that he wouldn’t enforce it. They’ve had the lowest level of enforcement of any community in the state. But that just calls into question, how do we get these laws to work? It’s one thing to get them passed. But the communities have to believe in them. They have to embrace them. And it should not be a political dividing line. We are way past the point where we can tolerate this kind of — this political malfeasance, people making a political issue out of something that cost the lives of people just out enjoying a Saturday night.”
Camerota then asked, “I mean, one of the problems — and I think we saw this in the Highland Park shooting case, as well, in Illinois — is that if it relies on the family to press charges, if it relies on the family to say that this person needs to go to prison, it doesn’t work. And so, Senator, what’s the solution for protecting this community in your state?”
Hickenlooper answered, “I think that we have to set a new and higher level for red flag laws, where you have to have some institutional framework by which the community can — if someone has clearly demonstrated that they are liable to go off the rails…we have to make sure people like that don’t have access to guns, and if they do have guns, we take them away.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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