County Commissioners: Rural lifestyle Under Attack; Time to Fight Back
Trevor Phipps
Are Colorado lawmakers trying to take away our guns?
The county leaders didn’t have to do much arm-twisting with a very supportive crowd, who appear ready to take up the cause.
After promoting the event for several weeks, the local Teller Rifles organization, based in Cripple Creek, hosted a lively meeting on Jan. 27 at the Cripple Creek Heritage Center for the purpose of discussing current and future gun laws. The meeting drew a huge, capacity crowd as nearly 100 people attended the forum and weren’t shy about verbally firing away at lawmakers’ plans to impose more weapon restrictions.
Teller County Commissioners Erik Stone and Dan Williams addressed local residents, along with Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell.
The overall theme of the meeting was that state lawmakers are going after Colorado residents’ guns yet again, and the only way to combat this trend is to fight them head-on in the political and legislative trenches. The county commissioners urged residents to end their silence, and pound on the state legislators’ doors to get them to cease their gun-grabbing efforts.
The town hall meeting came at the perfect time, as county officials urged residents to testify against the new SB 25-003 anti-gun bill. This legislation was slated for a big showdown on Jan. 28. Due to the tough time deadlines for many locals, the county commissioners told residents they could express their views with state lawmakers online, via Zoom.
County Commission Chairman Dan Williams was the first to speak to the crowd. He outlined the new policy, adopted by the U.S. Forest Service, to ban dispersed shooting on public lands, with officials favoring the establishment of more shooting ranges, instead. Williams said that there will be six designated shooting areas that will be built in the near future where firearm enthusiasts can practice shooting.
A major problem mentioned by Williams is that the state’s population trends favor urban areas.
Williams cited the fact that out of the nearly 7 million people that live in Colorado, only about 800,000 of them live in rural areas outside of the state’s Front Range cities.
The proposed gun laws, and other legislation coming from the state, are seen by Williams and area leaders as an attack on the rural way of life. He even told a story about how one lawmaker who didn’t know what a septic system was.
“I went to the (state) Capitol and told them that I brought a lethal weapon,” Williams said. “When you say that during a legislative session the sergeant of arms starts looking at you. I told them I drove a Ford F-150 that was used as a deadly weapon to kill 25 people in New Orleans. The reason I didn’t kill anybody on my trip to the Capitol today is because I am licensed, properly trained and I’m mentally competent. So, think about that when it comes to the argument about guns.”
Crazy Gun Laws Outlined
County Commissioner Erik Stone then offered the crowd a unique perspective, since he is one of only two certified concealed-carry permit instructors in Teller County. Stone said that a recent law passed changed the permitting process. Under the new regulations, this permitting has to be done in the county where the person resides by someone who is specifically certified in the area to teach the class.
Now those who wish to get a concealed carry permit must go through an eight hour class, pass a written exam and complete a marksmanship demonstration. “As an instructor, I have never done live fire instruction,” Stone said. “I could do it, but there is a lot of liability that goes along with live fire instruction. And there is also an issue with access when it comes to live fire instruction. For example, if you go into National Forest I can go teach friends how to shoot, but it is not legal to do any type of commercial operation on federal land without a permit.”
The absurdity of the barrage of new gun proposals emerged as a central theme at last week’s town hall meeting.
Another law recently passed at the state level requires that guns be secured in a lock box when people are not inside their vehicles. But, according to the sheriff, that law and others put in place have proven to be difficult for law enforcement to enforce.
“I get crazy questions on that law all the time, here’s the thing; the only time that you have to have a lock box in your car is when you leave the car with the weapon inside of it,” Sheriff Mikesell said. “The other side of it is who is going to ask or want to know. I don’t want to know. How do I enforce something that is really your right to do whatever you want to do with something? So, our deputies aren’t going to enforce this law. How do you enforce something that’s unenforceable?”
The county commissioners plan to spend a lot of time at the state Capitol in the coming months to testify against gun laws and other legislation that could have big local impacts. The county commissioners urged residents to testify, and help them fight against various anti-gun bills. Residents can go to Coloradocapitolwatch.com to track all of the legislation hitting the floor during the 2025 session.