Sheriffs Can’t Simply Ignore New Gun Laws
By: Kathleen Toohill
Tags: Weld County, Sheriff, Politics, Gun Control, Guns

Sheriffs Can’t Simply Ignore New Gun Laws

It puts lives at risk

Photo: Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

For months, the sheriff of Weld County, Colorado, has been on a media tour to talk about why he’d rather go to jail than enforce his state’s new gun safety law. The legislation empowers law enforcement to temporarily disarm people who are deemed a threat to themselves or others, but Sheriff Steve Reams said he’d prefer to willfully reject court-ordered gun removals.

“Well obviously no sheriff wants to be confined in their own jail, but if that’s what it takes to get this bill ironed out, then I guess that’s a sacrifice I’ll be forced to make,” Reams told CNN.

It sounds surreal, but he isn’t alone. Dozens of sheriffs in states like Colorado, New Mexico, and Washington have declared their counties “Second Amendment sanctuaries,” meaning local law enforcement won’t enforce gun laws they hold to be unconstitutional. In effect, this means sheriffs are declaring themselves arbiters of a wide range of state gun laws that have been enacted by legislatures, and in many cases, proven constitutional in courts.

This wrongheaded stance not only represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the Constitution — it puts innocent lives at risk.

Gun violence claimed almost 40,000 lives in 2017 — the highest level in nearly 40 years.

I work in the gun violence prevention movement, as the editorial manager at Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, where our attorneys spend their days fighting for safer gun laws. The past year has been a particularly productive one — in 2018 alone, 67 new gun safety laws were passed in 26 states and Washington, D.C. While the president refuses to push for action at the federal level, state-level progress shouldn’t be discounted: Evidence shows that states with stronger gun laws have lower gun death rates.

Our country’s gun violence crisis claimed almost 40,000 lives in 2017, the highest level in nearly 40 years. At some point, a number that big no longer feels like a compendium of unique individuals — sisters and husbands and coworkers and friends with their own hobbies and lives and dreams — and instead becomes just another statistic. The number is just too large; the actions required to prevent all 40,000 of these deaths seem too daunting, the obstacles insurmountable.

In fact, gun violence is often preceded by warning signs. According to Mental Health America, 80% of people considering suicide exhibit signs of their intentions. In a study of active shooters between 2000 and 2013, the FBI found that shooters often display four to five concerning behaviors in the pre-attack period.

Laws designed to intervene during these periods of crisis can be particularly effective in saving lives, and states are now pursuing ways to disarm potentially dangerous gun owners before they pull the trigger. These laws, broadly called extreme risk protection orders, allow family members and law enforcement to petition courts to temporarily remove guns from individuals considered to be a danger to themselves or others (the duration of the order and exact categories of people allowed to file a petition varies by state).

The earliest version of these laws were enacted in Connecticut and Indiana in 1999 and 2005, respectively. California enacted an iteration of this law, called a gun violence restraining order, after the Isla Vista shooting in 2014. Fifteen states now have some version of an extreme risk law, and laws are currently pending in seven additional states.

Despite the tremendous potential, implementation of these policies has been uneven, likely due to a lack of awareness. While many states and municipalities are engaging in public awareness campaigns so concerned family members know that this tool is at their disposal, increasing understanding among law enforcement is also extremely important.

These laws have already worked in critical moments: In Vermont, law enforcement officers were able to disarm a teen who kept a diary detailing his plans for a school shooting; in Florida, an extreme risk protection order was filed to disarm a man planning to kill his wife at church. Beyond the headlines, they are also proven to prevent suicides, which accounts for two-thirds of U.S. firearm deaths. Studies of Connecticut’s and Indiana’s laws have demonstrated that these laws can prevent one suicide for every 10–20 orders issued.

Sheriffs aren’t elected to decide the constitutionality of laws — they’re elected to protect residents of their counties.

The sheriffs resisting these laws are likening their cause to “sanctuary cities,” in which local governments refuse to carry out federal immigration laws. But unlike with the sanctuary city movement, where local law enforcement refuses to act as federal immigration agents, sherifs don’t have the authority to ignore state gun laws. Sheriffs aren’t elected to decide the constitutionality of laws — they’re elected to protect residents of their counties. Instead, sheriffs in the “Second Amendment sanctuary” movement are further endangering vulnerable members of their communities.

In Colorado, 92% of “Second Amendment sanctuary” counties have suicide rates above the state average. It stands to reason that these largely rural counties, which have higher rates of gun ownership, also suffer from elevated suicide rates. Because most suicides are impulsive, and firearms are a uniquely lethal method of suicide — used in only 5% of attempts, firearms are responsible for half of all suicide deaths — removing guns from people in crisis is critical.

Many gun owners understand that gun safety laws are not incompatible with gun ownership — in fact, such laws are a critical component of responsible gun ownership. Polling conducted in December 2018 indicates that 79% of Colorado voters and 77% of people who live in households with guns in Colorado support extreme risk laws.

Extreme risk protection orders enjoy strong bipartisan support not seen in many policies in any area of politics these days. In March, the Senate held a hearing on extreme risk laws in which Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham backed the idea — at least at the state level. Federal extreme risk legislation, Graham said, might be “more than the market can bear.”

Unfortunately, this attitude could apply to many of the bills that have gone to die in the Senate. The universal background checks bill passed by the House of Representatives in February — a policy supported by more than 90% of Democrats, Republicans, and gun owners — is currently languishing in the Senate because Senator Mitch McConnell refuses to bring the Senate equivalent up for a vote.

Given the gridlock in the Senate and the president’s silence, state laws are more important than ever. Laws like extreme risk protection orders have tremendous potential to save lives — as long as those individuals elected to enforce the laws actually do so.