Colorado's 'Red Flag' Gun Law Could Be Overturned
DENVER (CBS4) -- The so called "Red Flag" gun law could be overturned. A lawsuit accuses House Democrats of violating the Constitution in getting it passed. Three Republican state lawmakers and Rocky Mountain Gun Owners filed the lawsuit in Denver District Court.
"If a judge agrees with us, the constitution will throw this law out and effectively kill the Red Flag Bill," Dudley Brown with RMGO said at a press conference Thursday.
He says the bill was passed in violation of Article 5, Section 22 of the Constitution that governs the reading of bills in the state legislature. It requires that a bill be read at length if a lawmaker requests that the bill be read at length. "The Colorado Supreme Court has upheld this provision - Article 5, Section 22 - and said if a law is passed in contradiction of Article 5, Section 22 it is null, negatory, void of any effect," said Barry Arrington, RMGO's attorney.
He pointed to video of the House floor showing three lawmakers asking that the bill be read at length and several clerks reading part of the bill, at the same time, so it was incoherent.
Representative Alec Garnett, the Majority Leader in the House, says the initial request to read the bill was withdrawn and the other two requests weren't proper motions. He called the lawsuit frivolous, "Throughout the entire debate no one came to me on the floor."
But Senate Democrats thought the same thing when Republicans sued them in a similar case in March. The judge ruled in favor of Republicans. Garnett insists he followed all the provisions of the constitution, "This is not about what happened on the floor. This is about the gun lobby trying to unwind a very popular measure to help protect and save lives in Colorado."
Rocky Mountain Gun Owners says it will also be filing a separate suit challenging the constitutionality of the law itself. It is also working to recall 9 House Democrats and 3 Senators.