DENVER (KDVR) – There are background checks, age limits, and obvious restrictions for denying someone the sale of a firearm: like does a person smell of alcohol or marijuana?
As a shop owner told the Problem Solvers, the position is not an easy one to be in for these folks.
“We hold the right and responsibility to keep firearms from bad people,” the owner of High Country Armory, Alec Henkelman, said.
Henkelman has owned his gun shop for three years and he’s been selling firearms for six.
“We have a series of questions that we go through, we read body language, we ask people how they’re doing,” Henkelman said.
It’s his employees’ job to provide a background check for anyone looking to buy a weapon.
“Everyone here in this store has denied someone a firearm for something,” Henkelman said.
Another part of their job is to deny someone who shows signs of ill-intent the option to purchase a firearm.
“I had a guy come in and I said what do you want a gun for and he said to kill people, and I said see ya later,” Henkelman said.
Henkelman told the Problem Solvers that sometimes the bad guys don’t make it so obvious.
“It’s really hard to tell what someone’s wanting to do,” Henkelman said.
FOX31 legal analyst, George Brauchler, who prosecuted the case of the Aurora theater shooter, said this challenge doesn’t only affect gun dealers.
“Either we’re going to stand by the word that there are people in society that shouldn’t have guns and take steps to do it or it’s just going to be lip service and we’re not going to,” Brauchler said.
Colorado has its own restrictions when it comes to gun ownership.
“Are you under indictment, are you currently going through the process of being charged with a felony,” Henkelman said describing the questions they ask. “Pretty much any domestic violence is going to get you denied. [You] can’t have denied your citizenship, [and you] can’t illegally be in the United States.”
“As for who can buy a weapon,” Henkelman explained, “really, it’s the age, so it’s 18 for rifles and 21 for handguns.”
“If you’re a Colorado resident you pretty much able to buy anything that’s federally legal,” Henkelman said, “machine guns, suppressors, SBRs, SBSs, and then everything you see here in my store.”