AURORA | The controversial case of a man openly-carrying a shotgun while walking along East Iliff Avenue last month has drawn attention to something few people — including the officers who stopped the man — seemed to know: Aurora and many other municipalities have almost no restrictions on openly carrying firearms in public, whether the person with the gun is a child or whether the gun is loaded.
While state and federal restrictions bar juveniles from possessing some guns or from buying others, when it comes to rifles or shotguns such as the one 18-year-old Steven Lohner carried when stopped in late July, the law is virtually silent. Aurora and other cities allow nearly anyone with a clean criminal record to carry as they please.
Gun advocates say that restriction-free environment is as it should be, but the practice makes others uncomfortable, especially as episodes of “open carry” by gun-rights activists increase here and across the country. Open-carry activist websites and organizations advise people about carrying loaded weapons in public and post numerous videos of encounters they have with police.
Jennifer Hope, leader of the Colorado chapter of the gun-control advocacy group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said that while she supports the gun ownership rights, the practice hardly seems safe, especially in a city that just two years ago was home to one of the worst mass shootings in the country’s history.
“We support the Second Amendment, but that does not mean it is acceptable to parade around in public with a loaded weapon. This man was trying to make a political statement, but Colorado moms don’t want armed individuals playing politics with our children’s safety, particularly in a community like Aurora, which has been plagued by such tragic gun violence.”
Legal experts say that beyond beefing up training for officers, there is little municipalities can do about the issue from a political or practical standpoint.
Dave Kopel, research director at the Independence Institute and one of the lawyers challenging some of Colorado’s new gun laws, said beyond the ban on open carry in Denver, there are few restrictions on open carry or other gun laws at the local level.
That’s because lawmakers have generally recognized that people travel from jurisdiction to jurisdiction with their firearms, and different laws from place to place could lead to problems.
“You can’t expect somebody carrying a gun to also carry a lawyer,” he said. “So we need to have some predictability.”
Anthony Fabian, president of the Colorado State Shooting Association and a lawyer who specializes in gun laws, said while some municipalities have bans on carrying firearms into government buildings, the bulk of local governments yield to state law, which is generally free of restrictions on the practice.
Castle Rock has a ballot measure set for the fall that would allow people to carry guns into city-owned buildings, but Fabian said he doesn’t expect many local governments will have the stomach to try to change laws in the other direction. That’s part because new gun laws tend to be particularly controversial, he said.
“For most jurisdictions it’s not going to be an issue,” he said.
But the status quo doesn’t sit well with some.
“When we are out in public with our children, the last thing moms want to see is a man walking the streets openly carrying a loaded shotgun — especially when there is simply no way to know whether that person is legally able to own the weapon, let alone sufficiently trained in the safe handling of that weapon,” Hope said.
Fabian said he understands that state law has some gray area when it comes to guns — juveniles, for example, can carry a rifle or shotgun, but they can’t buy one from a retailer — and that the confusion surrounding those rules can be tough on police officers. But, he said, police should generally leave the person alone unless they observe them doing something suspicious, such as brandishing the gun in a threatening way.
“A guy with a gun, absent anything else, is not a violation of the law in most cases,” he said.
Fabian, who also teaches at the Community College of Aurora police academy, said he would encourage officers not to stop someone simply for carrying a gun, but to observe that person for a while to see if they are doing anything wrong. There is nothing wrong with police watching someone who is walking down a public street, he said.
“Where the police will start running afoul of the law is if they try to detain this person or seize this person without any kind of reasonable suspicion or probable cause,” he said.
If officers stop a person for legally carrying a gun, Fabian said they open themselves up to a lawsuit.
In Thornton, a man who carried a pistol into a movie theater shortly after the Aurora theater shooting successfully sued the city after police detained him.
In the recent Aurora case, police cited Lohner for obstruction when he refused to show his ID. Police initially said the officers stopped Lohner because they thought he might be younger than 18. While the city once had a law barring juveniles from possessing firearms — a law the city implemented during a rash of youth violence in the early 1990s — that law hasn’t been on the books for years.
Kopel said that’s where better training for officers comes in.
“The city has a responsibility to train its officers so they know what the law is,” he said.
In the days after Lohner was cited, Aurora police spokesman Officer Frank Fania said cases like this are a challenge for the police because they have to juggle so many variables, including whether the person could be a felon, if they are carrying a gun because they believe they are in danger and whether the person could have legally purchased the weapon.
Aurora City Councilwoman Debi Hunter-Holen said that with all those questions facing officers, it only makes sense that officers would stop someone and simply find out who they are.
“If it’s a question I think police are right to say, ‘Show me your ID’ just to make sure they are allowed to carry it,” she said.
Open carry by law abiding citizens is fine.
James Holmes was a law abiding citizen until he decided to enter the Aurora theater and kill 12 people. How do we tell the difference?
So you’re saying he should have been legally obliged to conceal his rifle under his trench coat before walking into the theater and shooting dozens of people?
Doesn’t seem like much of a solution.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Well, I wonder how quickly he would have been stopped if 17 people in the audience had drawn their hip weapons and fired simultaneously. That’s a hell of a lot of probable killshots.
And collateral damage? You assume that 17 people would be able to draw and hit a target some 70 feet away in a chaotic situation to say the least. Wonder how many people would have been hit by the “good guys”
James Holmes was also a person with a known mental illness that was documented do not dare class that man with us…. what u fail to understand is this people even crazy people will not likely do what he did if the field was level.. why did he do what he did??? Because he knew without a doubt that more then likely he was the only person in there with a gun… now if u take just half of the people and give them guns do u think it would have turned out the same? Absolutely not!!! He would have been shot within the first 5 seconds…. now for the school shooting if u had half of the teachers carrying a weapon in anyone of them schools who these kids have shot and killed so many??? Absolutely not! Again he would have be shot dead with in a few seconds… or may not have done it at all.. don’t be brain washed about facts about weapons. There will be bad eggs everywhere u will never stop crazy… but if u give up your rights and on top of it make everyone give up their right you are going to be in for a rude awakening… all u are doing is making it easier for criminals to do what they do… why don’t you people see that??? If u don’t like guns that is fine don’t like them don’t buy them let the people that do buy them and carry them… one day one of us might just save your life… we are not trying to make a law that u have to buy one and carry it stop trying to make us give up our right…. why do u think that most people comply with police?? I promise it’s not the shinny Lil badge they carry… it’s the gun on their side…with more people carrying every town school theater would be a safe place… you walk by criminals everyday that have drugs or guns or other thing in their possession and just because u don’t see it doesn’t mean your not in danger … wake up and see what’s going on people !
No, the law was not followed in James Holmes’s case. He was mentally unstable and this was known to mental health professionals- and they did NOTHING even though they KNEW he was mentally unstable. So don’t come out with this “Holmes was legal” crap when it was a failure to FOLLOW the law that led to his acquiring weapons.
So you support universal background checks?
Think about it, the very people with guns, are usually the very ones that shouldn’t have them.
That’s like, deep, man! Did you get that from the restroom wall?
Like cops? Law-abiding citizens? The 100 million people in this country who passed the comprehensive background checks necessary to legally acquire firearms?
Do you have any actual research or statistics to back up that claim or are you just going for a catchy sound bite?
Same for keyboards and Internet access there kickstone
I can’t believe an instructor at the Police Academy recommends police should just observe people open carrying until something tips them off that the person with the gun is a bad guy … in Las Vegas, for example, that is deadly wrong advice: “a neighbor who saw them set off on foot Sunday morning with a red shopping cart carrying weapons and ammunition was not alarmed enough to call police.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/vegas-cop-killers/las-vegas-cop-killers-hated-government-left-swastika-body-n126666
He recommends it because if they detain the person the city will get the pants sued off of it. Did you even read the article?
You are right. A lawyer should not be recommending the police follow the law.
RIGHTS are not predicated upon any condition. It doesn’t matter if this woman doesn’t know how well trained a constitutional carrier is because it is his right to carry. Any of these people could carry an AKS in a tennis racquet bag and she would never even know.
These laws are what’s keeping this family home more and more. There’s really no need to go out much with everything available at your finger tips. These words the gun culture likes to throw around like “responsible” and “polite society” “law abiding” just don’t live up to the reality of guns in America.
You are paranoid. Most gun crime occurs in progressive run big cities with restrictive gun laws. Most gun crime are committed by minorities and gang members. If you take blacks and Hispanics out of the stats we have lower gun crime rate that European countries. This is not due to their race but a culture promoted by secular progressives where “pride” is touted as a virtue.
You are a racist. Most men who kill their families and wives are white, as are our mass shooters. You are full of hooey and NRA talking points.
Just to clarify. The Castle rock vote is specific to open and carry firearms on town property. Currently the Castle Rock town manager has the ability to remove signage that bans OC. Aurora actually has an slightly different OC ban on town property written into its town code.
(a)The carrying of firearms in or upon public facilities is unlawful when said facilities are posted with notification that the carrying of firearms is prohibited. (Sec. 94-154)
Conceal and carry handguns are allowed but requires the holder to be permitted and the handgun is out of public view. I’m not sure if there is no sign posted the property is OC. You may want to clarify that with your town representative.
A concern arises in Castle Rock that many of these town owned parks and rec center border schools so if Ballot A passes would local police enforce a federal ban of 1000 feet when local ordinance says its ok. Renee Valentine, a Town Council person who voted for OC said yes these properties will be open and carry if the Ballot A passes.
If you live in Castle Rock don’t forget to vote NO to keep the current OC ban in place. Voting ends August 19th
The thing that scare parents the most is that someone will walk into a school, theater, mall or grocery store parking lot – all sites of mass shootings – and kill their children. No one can tell just by looking if someone is just walking along exercising their Second Amendment rights or getting ready to open fire. I would think that responsible gun owners would understand this and use discretion and just plain common sense.
Restricting the rights of law abiding citizens does not stop crazy people. It usually only disarms law abiding people resulting in them getting killed by crazy people.
I reread my post and couldn’t find the part where I suggested taking away anyone’s guns. I suggested that gun owners might want to consider using some discretion when carrying guns in public. The knee-jerk reaction was all yours.
No nellibly the “knee-jerk” reaction is YOURS!
If you are SCARED at the sight of an honest law-abiding citizen lawfully carrying a firearm I suggest mental health counseling might be in order for your hoplophobia.
Most criminals use discretion.
By the numbers, I’m more concerned with that mom in her minivan driving down the road than anyone openly carrying a firearm. She kills and injures more people than all the firearm deaths and woundings in a year.
The organization “moms demand …” do not have the voice of every woman in Colorado. I live on the Western Slope and am not aware of a local chapter. I must point out however, open carry is sometimes irresponsible and can provoke some people. This is also true of some drivers who can legally drive a car but should not, in the interest of public safety. Folks, there is not an easy answer! I suggest we follow the U.S. Constitution, namely the 2nd Amendment in this case.
“We support the Second Amendment”
No you don’t.
““If it’s a question I think police are right to say, ‘Show me your ID’ just to make sure they are allowed to carry it,” she said. ”
No it is not right to say this. Your police officers have to follow the law like everyone else.
That would be profiling. With that reasoning the cops should be stopping people driving cars for no other reason than to find out if they are driving legally. If more people carried firearms there would be more people to stop people trying to carry out a mass shooting, you see the thing most of the people against carrying firearms don’t realize is that a psychopath don’t give a flip if they are breaking the law by carrying their fire arms since they are about to open fire and kill as many people as he can before someone stops him/her. Now with that in mind I would rather everybody in the theater had a gun and stopped them sooner than later.
I live in Aurora and I open carry all the time, I have never had one issue.
Should border patrol agents show up at a random home and order it’s inhabitants to show thier IDs? We don’t know if the people using that home are breaking the law by staying in it. How am I supposed to be comfortable with it if I don’t know for sure? My feelings should come before your rights. Same principle.
And what if the people are convicted child molesters living next to a school? Maybe we ought to check everyone’s ID every time we see someone living close to a school. I’m uncomfortable with a potential child molester near a school.
See, this is where the 4th, 5th and 14 Amendments kick in to
prevent this sort of witch hunt which is all protected by the 2nd Amendment.
Sorry Councilwoman Debi Hunter-Holen, the S. Ct. has held that Americans cannot be forced to have IDs and show them to police. That’s a police state. See Kolender v. Lawsen.
Anytime I hear “I support the Second Amendment, but” any credibility left in the writer’s sentence is gone.
The problem with slanted articles like this, and the mindsets of almost all gun control advocates, is that they start with the flawed premise that a gun is dangerous in any situation.
That simply is not true. When used correctly, guns are completely safe. From there, the rest of gun control arguments are rendered invalid.
Firearm owners, and concealed carry license holders in particular, as a group are typically more law abiding and safer than the general public, and in fact the numbers show that civilians are even safer than police.
Since an extremely small percentage of gun owners end up committing crimes, the correct response to open carry is exactly what Kopel and Fabian said: look to see if there are any other alarming behaviors, because carrying a gun, in itself, is no reason for concern.
As much as anti-gun groups want to avoid the comparison, it is very similar to auto ownership. When used properly, there is no inherent danger to it. However, when used improperly there could be disastrous results. Why is it that we can accept 30,000 accidental deaths a year from auto accidents, yet well under a thousand accidental firearm deaths a year is an “epidemic”?
A similar problem to the invalid premise is the continual inability for gun control advocates to separate gun owners who are law abiding from those who use guns for criminal purposes, often during the commission of other crimes. This is just further proof that it isn’t a “gun” problem that we need to deal with, but a “crime” problem. Same thing with the 20,000 deaths from suicide. It’s not a gun problem, it’s a sucide/mental health problem.
It’s a shame that some people have such emotional reactions to things like firearms, often when they have very little real-world experience with them. A little bit of knowledge and looking at the hard data tell a very different story from what gun control advocates would want you to believe.
Why do the cops need to harass a person walking down the street? Cops are a reactionary force and should leave law abiding citizens alone.
“Aurora City Councilwoman Debi Hunter-Holen said…it only makes sense that officers would stop someone…” It makes sense to her because the councilwoman is very likely aware of the unwritten APD policy to hassle any and all persons carrying firearms openly.
By this logic, officers should stop anyone driving a car because he or she could be unlicensed or under the influence of some drug.
Well Mr. Brandon Johansson, how do you know Steven Lohner was trying to make a political statement? He had recently been a crime victim of a violent assault, and at age 18, carrying a long gun openly was his ONLY legal option for carrying a firearm for protection.
He stated to the police officers in the video that at upon becoming 21, he would get a license to carry a pistol.
But I suppose your anti self-defense bias has you paint this situation as something else entirely. That’s not surprising. Honesty in reporting is not a known element for your kind.