While El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said he’s going to stand firm against new gun laws, Colorado Springs Police Chief Pete Carey is taking a different approach.
“The Colorado Springs Police Department will treat these new laws as it does every other law – we will enforce them,” Carey said in an email to The Gazette. “Having said that, some of these laws may be difficult to investigate and enforce.”
The newspaper asked Carey to weigh in on three gun bills that Gov. John Hickenlooper signed into law Wednesday.
The new laws limit ammunition magazines to 15 rounds, require universal background checks, and require gun buyers to pay for background checks.
Though Carey didn’t elaborate on why they might be difficult to investigate and enforce, he said there’s room for improvement in keeping guns out of the hands of people with mental health issues.
“A common theme in many homicides involving weapons is that there are indicators that the criminal exhibited some sign of instability or volatility prior to the tragic event,” he said. “As a community, we need to do a better job of ensuring that mental health professionals, school officials, co-workers, family and friends report suspicious or unreasonable behavior.”
Carey also said he recently reached out to local school superintendents and invited them to a meeting in the next month.
The purpose of the meeting is “to have a common sense discussion about school safety and critical incident response and how we can be better partners during these events,” he said.
“My hope is that area law enforcement agencies will begin to take steps that enable a more consistent, effective response to incidents at schools and other public places where large groups of people collect,” he said.
It is unfortunate that Colorado Springs has a political hack who is willing to put himself and his career before his oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Maketa is a man of strong character. The police chief would do well to emulate the El Paso county sheriff rather than pursue his self interests. An unconstitutional law is NOT a law.
Seem we have a politically correct police chief. However, he is not the chief law enforcement officer in the county. Also there is no way for him to enforce these asinine laws.
THIS COMMENT HAS BEEN EDITED TO COMPLY WITH THE POLICY FOR COMMENTS.
The political “hack” is the Sheriff not the police chief (the Sheriff is the elected offical, not the police chief). The Sheriff is blowing smoke … and he knows it.
A law is constitutional UNTIL a court says it’s not. Therefore, the police chief is correct when saying he’ll enforce it. He took an oath to uphold the constitution and he is.
You may not like the laws (and I don’t like some of it), but for the time being, it IS the law.
I wonder what people would think if the Sheriff or police chief said they wouldn’t enforce domestic violence laws, because they believed women just deserved it anyways? Hmmm…
I’d rather see the same people who are up in a lather over the gun laws get as upset over the governments efforts to erode our privacy.