A panel of Colorado state senators voted along party lines Tuesday to advance a bill that would further expand who can ask a judge to temporarily restrict a person’s access to firearms under Colorado’s extreme risk protection order law.

The Senate Veterans and Military Affairs Committee voted, 3-2, to move the bill to the full chamber for debate.

Supporters said the proposal would help reduce the number of crimes committed using guns, while critics said it would lead to overreach and violations of due process.

The legislature first adopted the ERPO law in 2019, allowing a family member or police officers to petition the court to prohibit an individual they believe poses an “imminent risk” to themselves or others from possessing or purchasing a firearm for up to 364 days.

In 2023, lawmakers expanded the list of who can petition for a protection order to include health care providers, mental health professionals, educators, and district attorneys.

This year’s bill, Senate Bill 004, would further expand that list to include health care facilities, mental health centers, and educational institutions.

Sponsor Sen. Tom Sullivan, D-Centennial, who also sponsored the original legislation and the 2023 expansion, said the number of crimes committed with firearms has decreased in recent years, which he believes is due in part to a number of gun laws passed by the Colorado General Assembly.

He said expanding the state’s statute could help bring those numbers down even more.

“The public health crisis that is gun violence isn’t something that can be addressed in just a singular policy attempt,” he said.

Worries about government overreach, right to due process

Members of the Colorado State Shooting Association, the state’s branch of the National Rifle Association affiliate, argued that ERPO laws are unconstitutional, insisting they violate both the Second Amendment and the Fifth Amendment, which grants Americans the right to due process.

Expanding Colorado’s ERPO law invites “abuse, inefficiency, and potential violations of due process,” said Ray Elliott, the group’s president.

“We are no longer talking about close family members who actually know the individual well,” added Teddy Collins, who serves as vice president of the Colorado State Shooting Association’s industry affairs. “We are talking about (entities that are) further removed: institutions with ideological positions and individuals who hold personal and political anti-gun bias. That is not justice, that is government power weaponized through acquisition.”

Michelle Grey, a retired teacher from Pueblo, argued that permitting schools to petition for protection orders would erode the trust between students and their teachers.

“More than anything, trust matters,” she said. “Students only come forward when they believe their teachers are there to help them, not to report them or to trigger legal action. (Senate Bill) 004 is being presented as a mental health and a public safety bill. It is neither. It does not meaningfully expand access to mental health care. What it does is expand government authority to confiscate firearms and restrict the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”

Amy Lopez, an attorney with the University of Colorado Anschutz, said allowing institutions to file protection orders means educators and health care providers won’t have to spend time finding a law enforcement entity to file on their behalf, allowing them to preserve their relationship with the student or patient.

“The proposed change adds flexibility by giving us one more tool in our toolbox to prevent gun violence,” she said.

Furthermore, Lopez maintained, ERPO petitions are subject to due process, as individuals still have the right to counsel and the opportunity to appeal.

“As an attorney reviewing the legislation from 2019 and all of the amendments, I’ve been very impressed with the legislation,” she said.

Spencer Cantrell, who works for the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, said the expansion outlined in SB 004 is “consistent with what we see in ERPO usage and petitioners across the country.”

According to the University of Michigan’s Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention, 22 states and the District of Columbia have ERPO laws. Six states, including Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, have laws that ban or restrict the adoption of ERPO legislation.