EDITORIAL: Ramp up use of red flag laws
Dec. 1—The tragedy of the recent mass murder at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is compounded by the question of whether law enforcement there might have prevented the slaughter by using the state's red flag law.
Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, is charged with killing five people and wounding 18 in the rampage, along with related hate crimes. He was arrested in 2021 near Colorado Springs after he threatened to use a bomb and other weapons against unspecified targets. Police could have but did not use the state's red flag law to obtain an extreme risk protection order, which might have precluded Aldrich from acquiring other weapons.
Colorado adopted its red flag law in 2019 after years of debate following a mass murder at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater in July 2012. Such laws enable a relative or law enforcement to seek a court order removing weapons from a person who is found, after a hearing and evaluation, to be a danger to himself or others.
The law has been used less vigorously in Colorado than in other states. There is no way to know the degree to which protective orders prevent potential future crimes. But the Colorado case, along with others in several other states, demonstrates that any law is only as good as its enforcement. Police in states with red flag laws (not yet in Pennsylvania) should seek extreme risk protection orders whenever an individual commits or threatens violence.
