Act of Domestic Violence

“now this is a sticky area because under the second amendment we are allowed to have guns if we don't have any felonies and we're u.s citizens we're allowed to carry guns however if you are charged with an act of domestic violence in the state of colorado you do not have that second amendment right it is taken from you because you are charged now the question is whether or not that will stick or whether you'll be prevented from having your weapons for the entirety of your life the short unfortunately painful answer is if you have a conviction for domestic violence under the current laws in colorado you can never own a gun again”

“so when you have an open charge of domestic violence a couple of things happen we've talked in previous videos about how that protection order mandatory enters against you and a component of a domestic violence protection order a criminal protection order is that they have to the defendant has to state that they do not own or possess weapons there was an amendment to this law in 2001 which required everyone to file an affidavit if they are charged with an act of domestic violence stating affirmatively that either one they don't own weapons or two if they do own weapons that they have gotten rid of them they no longer possess them”

“and there are a number of different things and steps you have to go through to prove that you no longer possess those weapons but that's just for a charge not even a conviction if you are charged with an act of domestic violence you cannot have weapons and weapons includes longer knives as well anything that could be thought of as a weapon has to be nowhere near you you cannot be in a house with them you cannot in any way be found to be in a possession of a weapon”

“a question i get asked pretty frequently is do dv defendants have protection orders levied against them or in other words if you're charged with an act of domestic violence will you have a protection order issued against you the short answer is yes the even shorter answer is everyone who's charged with a crime in colorado has a protection order mandatorily injure against them the difference is is that if there's an act of domestic violence alleged the protection orders become much more robust and there's a much higher likelihood that you could get into further trouble and pick up additional criminal charges if you violate that protection order”

“a question i get asked pretty frequently is do dv defendants have protection orders levied against them or in other words if you're charged with an act of domestic violence will you have a protection order issued against you the short answer is yes the even shorter answer is everyone who's charged with a crime in colorado has a protection order mandatorily injure against them the difference is is that if there's an act of domestic violence alleged the protection orders become much more robust and there's a much higher likelihood that you could get into further trouble and pick up additional criminal charges if you violate that protection order”

“now that we understand that domestic violence is actually a sentence enhancer not its own independent charge let's talk about some of the typical criminal offenses that are underlying commonly seen domestic violence cases in other words what are some typical criminal charges that are usually charged as an act of domestic violence the most common thing that we see here in colorado is someone being charged with a third degree assault as an act of domestic violence”