Gay club shooting suspect evaded Colorado red flag gun law
DENVER — Prosecutors said one of the suspects in the June 13 double shooting that killed three people in Lovelock, Colo., was not legally prohibited from possessing a firearm.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the prosecution of two men charged in the killings to turn over information on how federal gun laws work for those without a license to carry weapons.
U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn determined that federal law does not allow Colorado red flag gun laws to apply to people legally carrying guns in that state.
U.S. District Judge John Kane said in a ruling obtained by The Associated Press that “the red flag law is not a defense to any crime that can be committed with a firearm” in Colorado.
The shooting at Loveland’s Westlake Village Club, which left three people dead and nine wounded, was among a growing number of mass shootings in the U.S. and across the world that have taken a life or more.
Three people were killed in a mass shooting in a Chicago-area cemetery last month. Six people were killed in Santa Fe, N.M., last year at an anti-abortion event. Two other deaths were a result of mass shootings last week in the U.S.
Northeastern Colorado’s Attorney General John Suthers said the Loveland shooting was an awful tragedy that should serve as a wake up call for the state.
“This shooting illustrates the need for meaningful gun safety legislation that reduces gun violence and ensures that our communities are safe places where we can conduct our lives,” he said in a statement.
Advertisement
All eight of the country’s states with red flag laws allow people who have a history of domestic violence or domestic abuse to obtain a temporary or permanent firearms license to keep and carry guns at home.
“Colorado is among the jurisdictions that have adopted similar laws, so I don’t understand the argument to adopt laws in other states that are not similar to Colorado’s,” Blackburn said in a brief hearing at the federal courthouse in Denver.
The judge questioned whether the gun laws would even be applicable if the alleged shooter in Loveland had been legally permitted to carry a firearm and had violated the state’s red flag law in order to get a gun in the first place.
“I find it exceedingly unlikely that someone would commit a violent shooting