The Insidious New Attack on The Right to Keep and Bear Arms:

“You Can Keep Your Gun but If You Dare to Bear It in Defense of Self or Property

We Will Put You in Jail and Charge You With a Felony”

By Robin Heid, M.A.

~ Part One ~

Introduction

The boundary between freedom and tyranny is the criminal justice system. – Larry Pozner, Esq.

This I write on July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of America’s declaration of independence from tyranny to:

1) Make you aware of a grave threat to our God-given, common law, constitutional, and statutory right to bear arms in defense of self and property by rogue DAs; and

2) Explain why all defenders of freedom must act to end this threat forthwith and set an example for others so that we can save our Republic from those who seek to destroy it.

Summary

1. Colorado’s Seventh Judicial District DA Anna Cooling is currently pursuing felony prosecutions of individuals for lawfully defending themselves and/or their property by displaying  firearms that were not even fired. In so doing, DA Cooling not only defies the US Constitution’s Second Amendment (especially as clarified by Bruen and Wolford), the Colorado Constitution’s Article II, Section 13,  and Colorado Revised Statutes 18 1 704 and 705,  she violates her oath to support those three pillars of our most fundamental freedoms.

2. No one voted for Anna Cooling to wage war on our God-given right to defend ourselves and our property with lethal force if necessary – in fact, no one voted for Anna Cooling at all. Not a single vote was cast in 2024 for Anna Cooling. She was:

a) selected by a GOP 7th Judicial District vacancy committee made up of members who were apparently unaware of her rabidly anti-gun, anti-self-defense, anti-property rights views; and then

b) installed in office by being awarded via state law the votes cast for her predecessor, Seth Ryan, who resigned too late for his name to be removed from the general election ballot.

D.A. Cooling now abuses her unelected access to power by:

i) disregarding and disrespecting two constitutions and multiple Colorado statutes; and

ii) legislating from her prosecutor’s desk the criminalization of self defense and property rights using the pretense of “prosecuting crime.”

In so doing, this non-elected DA is worse than a RINO; Cooling is acting exactly like a radical, Soros-supported leftist DA and, even worse, she’s doing it pro bono.

3. This threat extends far beyond Montrose County and the state of Colorado. Leftist prosecutors throughout the US share strategies and tactics on lawfare-legislating from the prosecutor’s desk to coddle criminals, criminalize freedom generally – and the rights to defense of self and property specifically.

That is why it is critically important that we make a stand right here, right now, and stop this concerted, coordinated attack on our most basic God-given, common law, constitutional, and statutory rights: to defend ourselves and our property with lethal force if necessary.

Background

The “theory of prosecution” upon which RINO Anna Cooling bases the felony menacing charges she files against citizens for displaying firearms to defend themselves and their property is:

IF we think you scared someone while using a firearm to defend yourself and your property, even in accordance with self defense laws CRS 18-1-704/705/706

THEN you are guilty of felony menacing.

Cooling’s theory of prosecution:

a) Defies the Colorado Constitution section that the “the right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property… shall be called into question”;

b) defies CRS 18-1-704(1), which states that “a person is justified in using physical force upon another person in order to defend himself… and he may use the degree of force which he reasonably deems necessary for that purpose: and is

c) based on “use of force” definitions that apply only to sworn police officers, not to citizens.

To put a finer point on it, Anna Cooling’s felony menacing prosecutions are predicated on unconstitutionally, illegally, and inappropriately:

i) Questioning the right of citizens to armed self defense

ii) Violating self defense statutes by Monday Morning Quarterbacking citizen self defense actions instead of deferring to the citizen’s judgment as the statutes direct; and

iii) Basing it all on bureaucratic use-of-force definitions that apply only to sworn police officers and are not part of any actual Colorado law.

The Cases

Two felony menacing cases will be detailed as examples. It is important to note that these are not one-off prosecutions: DA Cooling is actively legislating from her prosecutor desk against the right of American and Colorado citizens to defense of person and property with lethal force. She refuses to acknowledge that We the People have the right to defend ourselves with lethal force – even on our own property in an open-carry state – and recently declared to a senior member of the Montrose community that “you cannot brandish a firearm even in self defense” – which is of course not just per se unconstitutional and de jure false; it is ipso facto absurd.

Case #1: Lynn Duteil. Mr. Duteil is a long-time Montrose resident with IIRC no prior criminal record. Mr. Duteil is 68 years old and doesn’t look a day over 80: He is obese, severely diabetic, he can barely walk, and he tows a 3-foot-long oxygen tank with him wherever he goes.

Mr. Duteil was in the past year or so accosted while driving by two individuals who road-raged him. At one point, they blocked him in where he couldn’t get away, so he displayed a firearm to make it known that he could and would defend himself if necessary. That ended the conflict, but instead of recognizing Mr. Duteil’s actions as self defense under two constitutions and Colorado state law, the unelected Anna Cooling disregarded the guardrails established by all three (and her oath of office) and charged him with felony menacing.

When Mr. Duteil appeared in court on 18 March 2026 in front of the newly appointed-by-Polis district court judge Laura Harvell, his public defender explained that Mr. Duteil was taking “The People’s” draconian plea bargain because his health was so bad “he could not survive a trial.” What followed was one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen in a courtroom.

Mr. Duteil’s “deal” is what is called a “deferred judgment.” Mr. Duteil pleads guilty to felony menacing. He is then put on probation and stripped of his right to self defense for two years. He is required to pay “probation fees” and other “fees” to various agencies/NGOs for the duration of his probation, a total that requires 4 figures to measure.  If Mr. Duteil doesn’t get in further trouble during those two years, his conviction is vacated, and his self defense rights are restored. Judge Harvell responded to Mr. Duteil’s guilty plea by asking him three questions:

1. Did he make this plea voluntarily, of his own volition, and declare that he is of sound

mind to do so? (“Yes.”)

2. Was he under the influence of any drugs or alcohol? (“No.”)

3. Was he coerced in any way to make this plea? (“No.”)

Think about that: Judge Laura Harvell accepted, at face value (and with a straight face, no less) Mr. Duteil’s assertion that he had not been coerced into making his plea – despite the fact that, less than 3 minutes before, his lawyer had declared that Mr. Duteil was taking the plea only because going to trial would kill him.

Think further about this: Unelected DA Anna Cooling approved a course of action against Mr. Duteil that at its core was: “We reject your right to self defense so take the deal or DIE.”

Anna Cooling relentlessly pursued Mr. Duteil for daring to exercise his God-given, constitutionally affirmed, and statutorily detailed right to use lethal force in self defense if necessary. Worse, Cooling approved this “take the deal or DIE!” prosecution of a man who didn’t even fire his weapon, much less injure or kill either of his assailants with it, all while being so disabled he probably can’t defend himself unarmed from a 12-year-old girl.

But wait, it gets worse.

After accepting Mr. Duteil’s plea (which any judge with an even marginally functional moral compass would have rejected in favor of dismissal and a scolding), Judge Harvell thought it was appropriate to give him the benefit or her constitutionally, legally, and tactically… uninformed views on self defense, felony menacing, and the use of escalation to de-escalate a conflict.

“Displaying a firearm is felony menacing,” Judge Harvell asserted, thereby revealing that she is:

a) astonishingly ignorant of the elements that constitute felony menacing; 

b) so irrationally, intemperately afraid of guns that just seeing one makes her fear for her life (the element of felony menacing she left out of her definitional assertion thereof); and/or

c) defining the statute using a non-legal term that applies only to sworn police officers.

Judge Harvell then proceeded to add that she “does not believe in escalation to de-escalate” – apparently to further convince herself that Mr. Duteil did indeed deserve the draconian punishment she imposed on him. Her “belief,” however, has no relationship to objective reality, either at the individual or nation-state level, so it is similarly intemperate of her to inject that delusional, debunked belief into a court case that literally revolves around the proven tactical and strategic fact that escalation to de-escalate works.

You may by now be wondering why I know so much about Mr. Duteil’s case and, in particular, the circumstances of his case as well as the intemperate Judge Harvell’s comments thereabout.

The answer: I was there waiting for my turn.

Next Issue: Part II

Part Two of The Insidious New Attack on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms will cover a second felony menacing case that DA Anna Cooling is pursuing in furtherance of her agenda to legislate from her prosecutor desk the denial of American and Colorado citizen rights to even display a firearm in defense of person and property, much less fire it – even on their own property in an open-carry state. Part Two will also delve deeper into the failures of the Montrose Police Department and its associated “drug task force” to competently police the neighborhood, failures which were the proximate cause of the second felony menacing case. It will also examine:

• DA Cooling’s use of a legal theory from Lewis Carroll’s children’s book Alice in Wonderland to justify her office’s constitutional misconduct; and

• How the actions of DA Cooling and her leftist accomplices to “shadow ban” even the display of firearms in defense of self and property work in concert with the moves by Comintern legislatures in Colorado and other states to ban certain guns or magazines.

Foot notes

_________________________________________________

[1] Colorado Constitution, Article II, Section 13:

“The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called in question; but nothing herein contained shall be construed to justify the practice of carrying concealed weapons.”

[2] CRS 18-1-704: Use of physical force in defense of a person

(1) Except as provided in subsections (2) and (3) of this section, a person is justified in using physical force upon another person in order to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by that other person, and he may use a degree of force which he reasonably believes to be necessary for that purpose.

(2) Deadly physical force may be used only if a person reasonably believes a lesser degree of force is inadequate and:

(a) The actor has reasonable ground to believe, and does believe, that he or another person is in imminent danger of being killed or of receiving great bodily injury…

CRS 18-1-705: Use of physical force in defense of premises

A person in possession or control of any building, realty, or other premises, or a person who is licensed or privileged to be thereon, is justified in using reasonable and appropriate physical force upon another person when and to the extent that it is reasonably necessary to prevent or terminate what he reasonably believes to be the commission or attempted commission of an unlawful trespass by the other person in or upon the building, realty, or premises...

[3] These police-only use-of-force definitions appear only in the Colorado Office of Research and Statistics (ORS) publication: ORS: Data Submission – Contacts & Use of Force. Their only purpose is to detail how police officers must write their reports about any incident in which they made “use” of their firearm in any way. The germane passages appear in the FAQ section:

What does Use of Force include?

The state definition of “use of force” includes: “All use of force by its peace officers that results in death or serious bodily injury or that involves the use of a weapon.” This is substantially different from the FBI definition which requires discharging a firearm, causing serious bodily injury, or causing death. (Footnote continued on next page.)

Use of a weapon includes unholstering, brandishing, or discharging a weapon during an incident. The statute defines a weapon as a “firearm, long gun, Taser, baton, nunchucks, or projectile weapons.” Once a weapon is unholstered or brandished, even if not discharged, then it becomes a reportable use of force incident…

How are SWAT and other actions involving multiple officers reported?

If a weapon is brandished during the contact then all officers’ names and other required information must be reported for that use of force event. In this case, if a firearm or long gun is in the hands of the officer in a ready position to be used, it is considered to be brandished. If the weapon is being carried on the officer’s back and is being secured in such a way that it could not be immediately fired, it is not considered to be brandished.

[4] Cooling’s “brandishing” assertion is also a legal fiction: As mentioned above: a) there is no crime of “brandishing” a firearm in the Colorado Revised Statutes; b) and “brandish,” “brandishing,” and “brandished” appear nowhere in the entire 25,000+-page CRS; they are bureaucratic terms created to guide police officers when they write use-of-force-inclusive incident reports. The terms have no force of law, no relationship to any law, and do not apply to citizen self defense in any way, shape, or form.

[5] It’s quite a racket: Publicly available information shows that the standard “probations services” fee alone ($50/month) currently nets the justice agencies and associated NGOS between $35,000 and $60,000 a month, depending on collection rate.

[6] There is a deeper, disturbing systemic reason for Judge Harvell’s refusal to dismiss the charges against Mr. Duteil that goes way beyond her absent or malfunctioning moral compass, but that is outside the scope of this presentation. More later.

[7] Section 18-3-206: Menacing

A person commits the crime of menacing if, by any threat or physical action, he or she knowingly places or attempts to place another person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury. Menacing is a class 1 misdemeanor, but it is a class 5 felony if committed by the use of a firearm, knife, or bludgeon or a simulated firearm, knife, or bludgeon. 

Note: Felony menacing is a very weird law: You don’t get charged with felony menacing based on what you did; you get charged with felony menacing based on someone’s feelings about what you did. 

[8] On the individual level, Mr. Duteil proved in his own case that escalation to de-escalate works. On the nation-state level, President Reagan proved it: When the USSR put SS-20 medium-range nuclear missiles on its western borders (so they could hit NATO bases in 7 minutes), President Reagan said “I’ll call your SS-20s and raise you our Pershing IIs.” This was a big escalation: Soviet accuracy meant they could hit military bases; Pershing II accuracy meant it could hit command & control bunkers and thus decapitate USSR/Warsaw Pact military and political leadership. Faced with the threat of their personal nuclear annihilation (not just their soldiers and citizens), the Soviets decided they didn’t need SS-20s on their western borders after all – and withdrew them. A few years later the US and USSR signed the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which was the first arms control treaty that eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons (SS-20 and Pershing II).