A federal court ruling has drawn a brighter line between the right to arms for law-abiding citizens – and the need for strict laws to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. The ruling underscores the folly of Colorado’s legislature in watering down those laws.

As reported by our news affiliate Colorado Politics, the U.S. District Court in Denver earlier this month shot down an attempt by a felon to invoke a recent, landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision to get himself off the hook on federal gun charges. Perrion Gray had been charged with possessing a firearm as a previously convicted felon and claimed last June’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen ruling precludes his prosecution.

That ruling held that restrictions on firearm ownership and use are only permissible if they are “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Gray’s lawyer argued in his motion to dismiss the firearm count that the Bruen case requires courts to evaluate the constitutionality of gun laws against regulations that were “widespread and commonly accepted” at the time of the Second Amendment’s adoption.

U.S. District Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney wasn’t buying it – because the Bruen case doesn’t apply to criminals. Restrictions on felons do, in fact, have an extensive history in the U.S., Sweeney found, in siding with Assistant U.S. Attorney Conor A. Flanigan.

As Flanigan put it, “Because he is not a law-abiding citizen, the defendant had no right to posses a firearm.”

Now, if only lawmakers in our state would pay heed – and pack some punch back into Colorado law. Such restrictions only make sense, after all. Curbing criminals’ access to firearms, even after they’ve completed their jail time, serves public safety.

And yet, ironically, a 2021 measure passed by ruling Democrats at the legislature leaves big loopholes in the state’s version of the federal law. Lawmakers decided to let convicted drug dealers, car thieves and many other felons legally possess firearms. Previously, it was a serious crime for people who committed such offenses to be found with a gun even after they were out of prison.

The change was part of the legislature’s reckless “justice reform” agenda that systematically has been lowering penalties and reducing incarceration for a host of felonies, from drug possession to auto theft to firearm possession by criminal convicts.

Police have been frustrated by the change, which takes yet another tool away from them in countering Colorado’s crime wave. The state’s fentanyl epidemic and it’s dubious distinction as the car-theft capital of the country, among other facets of the crime wave, are to a significant degree driven by repeat offenders – who often enough are armed.

Now, when they are caught helping themselves to your car parked in your driveway, the fact that they are armed can’t lead to additional charges.

Judge Sweeney’s ruling reminds us that there is a long-standing public interest in disarming criminal convicts and keeping them disarmed – even as law-abiding citizens enjoy their constitutionally protected right to arms. It’s only too bad our legislature has set aside the public’s interest in favor of the criminal’s.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board