{"id":55620,"date":"2013-05-22T21:30:42","date_gmt":"2013-05-23T03:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/spruell-part-of-2nd-amendment-lawsuit\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T18:38:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T18:38:29","slug":"spruell-part-of-2nd-amendment-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/spruell-part-of-2nd-amendment-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Spruell part of 2nd Amendment lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Montezuma
Montezuma County Sheriff Dennis Spruell talks to Delta County Sheriff Fred McKee after a news conference announcing a lawsuit against Gov. John Hickenlooper for signing two gun bills in Denver on Friday, May 17, at the Independence Institute, a conservative think tank sponsoring the lawsuit.<\/span>JOE HANEL\/Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The sheriffs, plus 36 other sheriffs who didn\u2019t attend the announcement and several other plaintiffs, claim that two gun bills Hickenlooper signed in March are unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

The bills require background checks for private gun sales and ban the sale of ammunition magazines that hold more than 15 rounds. Plaintiffs say they violate the Second and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.<\/p>\n

The sheriffs\u2019 overall argument is that the bills criminalize the ownership of common guns and routine behavior, like handing a gun to a friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy constituents feel their Second Amendment rights are being trampled on,\u201d Spruell said.<\/p>\n

He attended a news conference at the Independence Institute in Denver on Friday morning. Independence Institute researcher Dave Kopel will be the lead attorney in the case. Kopel served as an expert witness to Congress and the state Legislature against gun bills this year.<\/p>\n

Spruell said he was in Denver on other business and did not spend county money on the trip. He and La Plata County Sheriff Duke Schirard \u2013 also a plaintiff \u2013 both said taxpayer money is not being used for the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Several other plaintiffs joined the lawsuit, including gun manufacturers, disabled gun owners and gun merchants, including Durango\u2019s Goods for the Woods. The Durango store has a current inventory of guns that will become illegal to sell when the laws take effect July 1, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Several parts of the new laws are troublesome, Kopel said. The magazine ban applies not only to magazines larger than 15 rounds, but also smaller ones that are designed to be readily converted to a larger size. That includes most magazines because they usually have a removable baseplate.<\/p>\n

Attorney General John Suthers sent out \u201cguidance\u201d to police around the state Friday on how the law should be enforced. The memo says a magazine shouldn\u2019t be treated as high-capacity simply because it has a removable baseplate.<\/p>\n

However, plaintiffs said such guidance is legally meaningless, and they want the law overturned.<\/p>\n

The background check law requires private sellers to use a licensed gun dealer to see if their buyers are eligible. But with a $10 limit on background check fees, Kopel doubted if any gun dealers would be willing to do the work and assume the legal risk.<\/p>\n

Several people who lost loved ones to shootings sent out statements decrying the lawsuit, including Dave Hoover, a Denver-area police officer. Hoover\u2019s nephew, AJ Boik, was killed in the Aurora movie theater massacre.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is disappointing to see the majority of sheriffs in this state turn gun safety and the safety of families and citizens of this state into a political issue. These laws are supported by a majority of Coloradans because they protect public safety while respecting responsible gun ownership. Let\u2019s encourage the sheriffs to focus on public safety and enforce the laws they have sworn to uphold, instead of playing politics,\u201d Hoover said.<\/p>\n

Spruell, however, said a better strategy would be to enforce the many gun laws already on the books.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new laws that they\u2019re putting in have absolutely no effect on gun violence,\u201d Spruell said.<\/p>\n

Suthers said his office would defend the lawsuit, although he issued a statement that was far short of zealous support for the new laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn defending the lawsuit as counsel for the state, the objective of the Attorney General\u2019s Office will be to get court rulings on the legality of various aspects of the legislation as expeditiously as possible. Colorado citizens, and law-abiding gun owners in particular, deserve such clarification,\u201d Suthers\u2019 statement said.<\/p>\n

All the sheriffs from Southwest Colorado\u2019s five counties \u2013 Montezuma, Dolores, La Plata, Archuleta and San Juan \u2013 joined the suit. It was filed in U.S. District Court in Denver.<\/p>\n

Sheriffs in all but 10 of the state\u2019s 64 counties signed up as plaintiffs. The sheriffs who did not join were from San Miguel, Grand, Eagle, Pueblo, Chaffee, Conejos, Boulder and Pitkin counties, plus the city-counties of Broomfield and Denver.<\/p>\n

joeh@cortezjournal.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Montezuma County Sheriff Dennis Spruell talks to Delta County Sheriff Fred McKee after a news conference announcing a lawsuit against Gov. John Hickenlooper for signing two gun bills in Denver on Friday, May 17, at the Independence Institute, a conservative think tank sponsoring the lawsuit.JOE HANEL\/Cortez Journal The sheriffs, plus 36 other sheriffs who didn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1175,188,13,167],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-55620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-civil-rights","tag-dolores-star","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-local-news-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55620"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56266,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55620\/revisions\/56266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55620"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=55620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}