Skip to content

Monday, May. 11, 2026

Does a Colorado law allow teachers to anonymously petition for gun seizures?


yes

Senate Bill 4 allows schools and certain other institutions to petition for extreme risk protection orders, potentially shielding the identities of the employees initiating the complaint. 

Before the bill was signed into law in April, teachers who petitioned for a gun removal under Colorado’s red flag law had to sign their own names. Under the new law, the school can initiate the petition, with the dean or principal signing instead. 

The law likewise allows healthcare and behavioral health facilities to make a petition with their administrators signing off.

Extreme risk protection orders allow police to temporarily seize someone’s firearms if a  judge determines they pose a “significant risk” of hurting themself or others with a gun. The judge can issue an initial hold for up to two weeks to provide time to hold a hearing. After the hearing, the judge can extend the order for up to 364 days.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

About fact briefs

Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network.

See all fact briefs

The Colorado Sun is a journalist-founded, award-winning and nonprofit news outlet based in Denver that strives to cover all of Colorado so that our state — our community — can better understand itself. In this way, we believe we can contribute to a more vibrant, informed and whole Colorado. We are committed to fact-based, in-depth and nonpartisan journalism. We cover everything from politics and culture to the outdoor industry and education. Our goal is to produce the best possible journalism. We do that with the help of you, our readers, and community backers. We launched on Sept. 10, 2018.

Learn More

Be a Friend of facts

Help us fund more great fact briefs like this one.