This story was first published at Colorado Newsline.
DENVER | A bill to expand the types of eligible petitioners under Colorado’s temporary firearm removal law cleared a committee on Tuesday during the first lengthy and contentious bill hearing of the 2026 legislative session, which began earlier this month.
Senate Bill 26-4 passed along a party-line vote in the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee with the three Democrats on the committee voting in favor of it and the two Republicans voting against it.
The bill tweaks the state’s Extreme Risk Protection Order law, also known as the “red flag” law, which allows a court to temporarily remove a gun from someone who is dangerous to themselves or others. In many instances, that process involves a suicidal person in crisis.
The 2019 law originally allowed law enforcement and family members to petition a judge for an ERPO and was then updated in 2023 to also let health care professionals, mental health professionals and educators to submit a petition. This year’s bill would add institutions like hospitals and schools to the list of petitioners, as well as behavioral health clinicians who co-respond with law enforcement.
“Many of those who were reluctant to be a part of the legislation in 2019 or weren’t in place at the time have now asked to be added to the list of petitioners,” said Sen. Tom Sullivan, a Centennial Democrat running the bill. “When we added health, mental health and education professionals to the list, we quickly heard that the institutions those professionals work for wanted to see how they could be included.”
Between 2020 and 2024, there were 692 ERPO petitions in the state, according to the state’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention. Six were filed by health care or mental health professionals. Judges granted 478 temporary orders and 371 final orders, which last for one year.
Shalyn Kettering, legal counsel to Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, said that during her office’s travels around the state to educate people on the ERPO law, she learned there is a desire to “make it easier for those on the frontline to seek the protection of extreme risk protection orders and elevate those risks to the institutions for whom they work.”
Instead of a specific doctor’s or therapist’s name on the petition, it would list where they work. That is similar to how a law enforcement agency, versus an individual officer, can currently submit a petition.
Opponents said they see expansion of the ERPO law as further encroachment on Coloradan’s Second Amendment rights and worry that the law is akin to total gun confiscation. They also argued it could have a chilling effect on gun owners seeking medical care.
“This erodes trust between gun owners and medical providers,” said Ray Elliott, president of the Colorado State Shooting Association. He said the bill “would widen this divide, treating gun owners as second class citizens without equal (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) privacy or due process. Gun ownership is not a crime, and we must not normalize laws that presume guilt without evidence.”