Colorado addresses brandishing without ever using the word. No section of the Colorado Revised Statutes defines it and no charge carries that name, so the question in a real case is which existing statute the state will reach for. Two of them do nearly all of this work, and they carry different consequences.
The Charge Depends on Who Was Frightened
When the display is aimed at a person, the charge is menacing under C.R.S. 18-3-206, which covers knowingly placing or attempting to place another person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury by any threat or physical action. It is a class 1 misdemeanor, and a class 5 felony when committed by the use of a firearm, knife, or bludgeon, real or simulated.
When the display alarms people in a public place generally, the charge is disorderly conduct under C.R.S. 18-9-106(1)(f), a class 2 misdemeanor. That subsection covers a real or simulated firearm, an article fashioned to look like one, and a verbal claim of being armed, where the display is calculated to alarm and does alarm another person.
What That Means for a Case
Because the two statutes carry different classifications, the charging decision often matters more than the facts people focus on. A single incident can support either one, and the difference between a class 2 misdemeanor and a class 5 felony turns on whether the state can prove a specific person was placed in fear of imminent serious bodily injury.
Justification is the other half of most of these cases. C.R.S. 18-1-704 governs the use of physical force in defense of a person, permitting force against what the person reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force, with narrower conditions in subsection (2) for deadly physical force.