Colorado Takes Aim at Rearming Citizens : Old West: Debate has become so bitter that one legislator now wears a bulletproof vest. Gun proponents have been warned they can’t persuade legislators with threatening late-night phone calls.

DENVER —  Colorado, once home of such gun-toting legends as Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and Doc Holliday, is caught in cross-fire over proposals to let law-abiding citizens carry concealed firearms.

Opinions are strong.

“This is not the Wild West where you walk down the street and you have your gun and I have mine and the quickest man wins,” said state Sen. Regis Groff.

The debate has become so bitter that a legislator started wearing a bulletproof vest. And gun-law supporters have started warning their members they can’t educate legislators if they keep threatening them in late-night phone calls.

“You just make them more sure that they want you disarmed,” the Firearms Coalition of Colorado advised.

Four bills pending before the Legislature would allow anyone who qualifies to carry a gun. A fifth bill was killed by the Senate.

Fourteen states have laws allowing non-felons to obtain licenses to carry concealed weapons, and Vermont simply has no law prohibiting the carrying of weapons. Some of the more liberal laws are on the books in Montana, Washington, Oregon, West Virginia, Georgia and Florida. Fifteen states prohibit it.

The remainder, including Colorado, require applicants to show a specific need for a permit.

Colorado allows a law-abiding resident to get a permit to carry a gun, but police chiefs and sheriffs have refused to issue them to all but a few, citing fear of lawsuits.

That’s not fair, said supporters of proposals to loosen restrictions.

“I don’t believe citizens should have to worry about being caught by police with a firearm” or being unarmed while facing a criminal, said Jeff Lloyd, a member of the National Rifle Assn. and a supporter of one of the bills.

Denise Griffin, an analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures, said she gets about 40 calls a year from legislators who want to know how to liberalize gun laws. But she said she gets 400 calls a year on how to make gun controls stronger, and most of those calls involve tougher juvenile gun laws.

Gov. Roy Romer said most residents don’t want to return to the days when everyone in Colorado was allowed to carry a gun.

“I think some people deserve this kind of permit, and they need to have a way to get it,” he said. “But I don’t want a society where everybody has to carry a weapon. I do not want us to become an armed camp.”

State Rep. Ken Chlouber, sponsor of one of the bills, said opponents are trying to impose urban standards on rural constituents.

“The bad guys have got the guns. Let’s give the good guys the same opportunity,” he said.

State Rep. Diana DeGette, whose proposal to raise the legal age of buying a gun to 21 was killed in the House, said the trend nationwide is toward gun control.

“I think the gun lobby is beginning to realize that, and they’re becoming desperate,” she said.

“I don’t think carrying a concealed firearm helps solve violence. I don’t think people in Miami feel safer just because everybody can carry a gun. Florida is now fifth in the nation for violent crime,” DeGette said.