Legislative Proposal: Civil Immunity for Hosts of Armed Citizens Act of 2004

Colorado law provides for businesses, churches, and other such entities to exclude concealed-carry from their premises. We are ambivalent about the law granting such rights very broadly, in spite of the private-property aspect that these rights imply.

Businesses in Colorado are posting, or considering posting against CCW, more so now that the CCW law has been changed to shall-issue. They aren’t all doing so because they have any particular animus towards armed citizens (surely some do but all do not); they’re doing it because of the threat of liability. They are worried, reasonably, that they will be sued if a lawfully-carrying citizen has to draw and fire on their premises. Given the urban legends of frivolous lawsuits, we can understand but we cannot sympathize with businesses who are posting to protect themselves from such liability. We gun owners are responsible people and we insist that responsibility be not laid at innocent feet.

In that spirit, we propose the following Colorado law:

No enterprise engaged in lawful commerce or other entity hosting a peaceable assembly on premises located in the State of Colorado shall be found liable, jointly or severally, in civil proceedings for pain, suffering, injury, or death inflicted upon any person on, entering, or leaving said premises by a person armed in accordance with the laws of the State of Colorado.

We are not lawyers so we may have missed some term of art or exactitude. We will not accept any hits for run-on sentences. Note that we don't want to rule out Vermont-style carry should that ever be attempted again (ohhhh, it will).