It’s illegal in Boulder to openly carry a firearm unless it’s held in a “carrying case” — a holster for a handgun, for example, or something larger and easily recognizable in the case of a larger weapon.
And, yet, on Saturday afternoon in downtown Boulder, some among the group that lined Broadway to rally in opposition to the City Council’s proposed ban on assault weapons stood with AR-15-style rifles slung over their shoulders.
This was an open violation of city law, and one that the Boulder Police Department allowed to take place.
On Monday, Boulder police and city communications staff declined to be interviewed about that decision, but they did issue a statement from City Attorney Tom Carr, who said the police did not intervene as open-carry laws were being broken because doing so might have escalated the situation.
“To avoid conflict during protests, the police sometimes make a tactical decision not to enforce a particular law, if enforcement would create more conflict. Their primary job is to protect public safety,” Carr said in that statement.
Read the full story at DailyCamera.com.