Some sheriffs in Colorado mountain communities are unhappy to be charged with implementing SB3, the high-capacity permit-to-purchase law, when it goes into effect next year.
Colorado Ceasefire Legislative Action and other gun violence prevention groups lobbied for the law, which is intended to reduce the likelihood of high-capacity, quickly reloaded weapons (such as the AR-15) being used in mass-shooting incidents.
Several sheriffs told the Aspen Times that the law, which creates a multistep process including a background check, permit application, and safety training for would-be purchasers, will place additional strains on their departments’ limited resources. Legislators did not allocate any new funding to help local officials with the law’s rollout.
Sheriffs will be able to charge a fee when people apply for a permit to take the course, with some of those funds meant to help cover their costs for administering the program.
Summit County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons, a Democrat, told the paper SB3 imposes “unfunded mandates that require significant time, personnel and financial resources to implement.”
“These include the expansion of firearms safety programs and outreach efforts that were not previously within the scope—or budget—of many sheriff’s offices, particularly in rural or resource-limited counties like Summit,” FitzSimons said.
While sheriffs of both parties say meeting the resource demands of the law will be a challenge, the level of vitriol generated by the new law varies largely along party lines.
While FitzSimons, a Democrat, said the law was “well-intentioned,” Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario, who is a Republican, called it “unconstitutional crap” and a “back-door attempt at gun control.” Vallario told the Aspen Times that the law’s potential budget impacts are an “abuse of our county taxpayers,” which he blamed on “stupid liberal lawmakers.”
Conservative sheriffs in Colorado have long been critics of Colorado’s gun laws. After the 2019 passage of the state’s ERPO (red flag) law, several sheriffs declared their counties to be ‘Second Amendment Sanctuary Counties.’ Nationally, rural counties have higher rates of firearm deaths than urban counties.