The state of Colorado has been home to far too many mass shootings: Columbine in 1999, the Aurora theater shooting in 2012, the STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting in 2019, the Boulder King Soopers shooting in 2021, and the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs in 2022 all come to mind. But the toll of gun violence stretches far beyond mass shootings, encompassing community violence, firearm suicide, domestic violence, and unintentional shootings.

Perhaps in part because Coloradans understand the pain of gun violence firsthand, the state has become a leader in gun safety legislation. In 2013, Colorado passed a universal background check law, closing dangerous loopholes that allow individuals to obtain guns through private sales and gun shows.

In 2019, Colorado passed an extreme risk protection order, or “red flag” law, which allows courts to temporarily remove access to guns from individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others. At the time the law was passed, a number of Colorado sheriffs expressed their opposition, worried that it would infringe on gun rights. Now many of these sheriffs areĚýputting that lawĚýto use to protect the public.

And this year, there were an astounding four gun safety bills that became law, including , also known as “Jessi’s Law.” Jessi’s Law repealed the state’s extreme gun industry immunity law — a law that bankrupted my friends, Sandy and Lonnie Phillips.

Sandy and Lonnie lost their daughter Jessi in the Aurora theater shooting 11 years ago. They later sued four gun and ammunition companies. They weren’t seeking compensation, only improved safety practices.

When they lost the lawsuit, they were ordered to pay more than $200,000 for the defendants’ legal fees because of a cruel Colorado law, which forced them to file for bankruptcy. Two devastated parents still mourning the brutal murder of their daughter lost everything they had all because they dared to use our court system to try to prevent future horrific mass shootings.

We know that the fight to end gun violence is long, and that progress is often incremental. Sandy and Lonnie know that better than most. For years, they and other concerned citizens in Colorado advocated for the repeal of Colorado’s gun industry immunity law. This coalition included members ofĚýGIFFORDSĚýGun Owners for Safety like Peter Gurfein and young people like Lucy Sarkissian, a survivor of the STEM shooting who channeled outrage into action by becoming an activist.

Peter and other responsible gun owners understand that repealing industry immunity doesn’t restrict gun rights or access. Rather, it increases corporate accountability, industry responsibility, and victims’ access to justice in the courts.

While progress may be slow, we can never forget that we are winning this fight and creating a safer future for the next generation. The passage of Jessi’s Law proves that.

Jessi’s Law goes further than simply repealing Colorado’s punitive, extreme anti-victim law. It ensures that firearms industry members can be sued just like any other company when they break the law.

As we acknowledge 11 years since the Aurora shooting, on July 20, my heart is with Sandy, Lonnie, and all those impacted by the tragedy. Despite the loss of their daughter and their livelihood, Sandy and Lonnie refused to back down and continued to fight for commonsense gun safety measures.

It¶¶Ňőap thanks to their hard work, and the hard work of advocates across Colorado, that families can have their day in court. It¶¶Ňőap thanks to them that Jessi’s legacy lives on.ĚýGIFFORDSĚýwill make sure other states learn from Colorado’s lessons.

Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords founded the gun violence prevention organization GIFFORDS after she was shot at a constituent event in Tuscon, Arizona in 2011. The gunman killed six people and injured 12 others.

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Rulings this summer from two federal judges, who placed temporary restraining orders on the enforcement of some of the firearms restrictions approved in June by Superior and Boulder County, prompted Rocky Mountain Gun Owners’ executive director Taylor Rhodes to boast in a press release last week: “We are on fire, we just can’t stop winning in the courts.”

Louisville and Boulder, which also passed gun restrictions in the spring, have been sued by Rocky Mountain Gun Owners as well, though no rulings have come down from the court in those cases.

But those legal victories, fueled by a recent landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision bolstering Second Amendment protections, don’t mean the wholesale deconstruction of decades’ worth of gun control laws is nigh, constitutional scholars say.

“Many existing gun laws are secure, including bans on felons, mentally ill people and domestic abusers,” said Adam Winkler, a professor of constitutional law at the University of California Los Angeles. “Background checks and licensing requirements for concealed carry are also likely to be upheld.”

Even Dave Kopel, research director at Colorado’s libertarian-leaning Independence Institute and a gun rights advocate, said governments retain the “discretion to regulate the mode of carry.”

“Governments can ban carrying entirely in government buildings. Governments can prohibit all forms of gun misuse, such as shooting a gun in the air inside a city or town,” he said. “More generally, laws to prevent dangerous persons from having guns are more likely to be found consistent with the American legal tradition of gun regulation than are laws that impose prohibitions on peaceable gun owners.”

However, the high court’s June 23 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, which struck down a New York law requiring people to demonstrate a particular need for carrying a gun in order to get a license to carry one in public, raises serious questions about the legal soundness of other gun laws, Winkler said.

“The court said that only gun laws similar to those in place in the 1800s are permissible,” he said. “Relatively recent laws, like assault weapons bans and high-capacity magazine limits, are most at risk of being struck down under this new test.”

And that’s where Rocky Mountain Gun Owners saw an opportunity, quickly making Colorado ground zero in the fight over how far and wide the protections of the Second Amendment extend. The gun rights group of the Boulder County ordinances that, in part, ban assault-style weapons, limit magazine capacity and set a minimum age for firearms possession.

All four lawsuits filed by Rocky Mountain Gun Owners are expected to be consolidated into a single case at a hearing on Thursday, which could delay a decision on their merits into next year. Lafayette also passed gun control measures in June but hasn’t yet been the subject of litigation.

While the holds on enforcement of the new gun laws in Boulder County — specifically bans on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines — are temporary, gun rights enthusiasts are hopeful the conservative tilt of the nation’s high court means further favorable rulings on firearms.

“It has proven to us and gun rights activists around the country that the Bruen decision is here to stay and gives us a path to take back the rights that were stolen from us,” Rhodes said in an interview with The Denver Post. “They’ve opened the floodgates for challenges and that can’t be turned off easily. We’re already seeing the tables turn a bit.”

Kopel, who is also an adjunct professor at the University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law, said assault-style weapons like AR-15s have long been wrongfully vilified by gun control advocates due to their frequent use in mass shootings. They are also one of the most popular types of firearms among all gun owners in the country — the vast majority of whom never use them to commit a crime.

“There is not a historical tradition in the United States of banning common arms,” Kopel said. “Despite the misleading claims of gun ban advocates, the firearms they want to outlaw are not machine guns — they fire at the same rate as a typical handgun.”

ButĚýDavid Pucino, deputy chief counsel with the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said the assault weapons that Boulder and its neighboring municipalities outlawed three months ago are “especially dangerous.”

Boulder was the scene of theĚýMarch 2021 King Soopers mass shooting that left 10 people dead, including a responding police officer.

Pucino said the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia “recognized a historical tradition of restrictions on weapons that are ‘dangerous’ and those that are ‘unusual.'” Justice Clarence Thomas, Pucino said, “reasserted that point in his majority opinion in Bruen.”

“They’re designed to inflict catastrophic damage in a very short period of time,” he said. “And this isn’t a hypothetical for Boulder: it was a man armed with an assault weapon that murdered 10 people in a King Soopers last year. These weapons are designed to maximize destructive offensive capability, not the self-defense considerations that animate the Second Amendment.”

Boulder City Attorney Teresa Taylor Tate, immediately following the temporary suspension of the city’s gun regulations by the federal judge last week, said that “we believe these bans are both necessary and legal.”

Following the court’s suspension of the new gun laws in Superior and Boulder County, the city of Boulder announced it was voluntarily halting enforcement of its ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines to allow time to consolidate the four cases.

Taylor Tate declined an interview request from The Post.

Boulder City Councilwoman Rachel Friend wouldn’t comment on the specifics of the lawsuit against her city, but told The Post that she would continue “advocating to state and federal legislators to enact common-sense measures to curb gun violence.”

“Our kids and all of our community members deserve better than the current status quo of ever-increasing gun violence and fatality rates,” she said.

Louisville Mayor Ashley Stolzmann said she is confident the gun regulations passed by her city in June are “consistent with the U.S. Constitution as well as with state laws.” She hopes other communities will do the same, despite the immediate pushback from the courts.

“I invite other communities to join in taking action so as Coloradans we can change our course from the path we have been walking since Columbine, Aurora and Boulder and move on to a more peaceful future,” she said. “The data show that there are reasonable regulations that can reduce gun violence and they also show that most people support them when we can strip away the rhetoric.”

But Rhodes, with Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, said the recent Supreme Court decision makes it clear that local governments can only go so far with gun control before they begin to impinge on citizens’ constitutional rights. And his organization will be watching if any other Colorado communities try what was attempted in Boulder County.

“If you pass unconstitutional gun laws, we will sue you — period,” he said. “We’re ready.”

Biden will also recognize Sandra Lindsay, the New York City nurse who rolled up her sleeve on live television in December 2020 to receive the first COVID-19 vaccine dose that was pumped into an arm in the United States, the White House announced Friday.

Biden’s honors list, which the White House shared first with The Associated Press, includes both living and deceased honorees from the worlds of Hollywood, sports, politics, the military, academia, and civil rights and social justice advocacy.

The Democratic president will present the medals at the White House next week.

Biden himself is a medal recipient. President Barack Obama honored Biden’s public service as a longtime U.S. senator and vice president by awarding him a Presidential Medal of Freedom in January 2017, a week before they left office.

The honorees who’ll receive medals from Biden “have overcome significant obstacles to achieve impressive accomplishments in the arts and sciences, dedicated their lives to advocating for the most vulnerable among us, and acted with bravery to drive change in their communities, and across the world, while blazing trails for generations to come,” the White House said.

The honor is reserved for people who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values or security of the United States, world peace or other significant societal public or private endeavors, the White House said.

Biles is the most decorated U.S. gymnast in history, winning 32 Olympic and World Championship medals. She is an outspoken advocate on issues that are very personal to her, including athletes’ mental health, children in foster care and sexual assault victims.

Lindsay became an advocate for COVID-19 vaccinations after receiving the first dose in the U.S.

McCain, who died of brain cancer in 2018, spent more than five years in captivity in Vietnam while serving in the U.S. Navy. He later represented Arizona in both houses of Congress and was the Republican presidential nominee in 2008. Biden said McCain was a “dear friend” and “a hero.”

Washington is a double Oscar-winning actor, director and producer. He also has a Tony award, two Golden Globes and the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a longtime spokesperson for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

The other 13 medal recipients are:

• Sister Simone Campbell. Campbell is a member of the Sister of Social Service and a former executive director of NETWORK, a Catholic social justice organization. She is an advocate for economic justice, overhauling the U.S. immigration system and health care policy.
• Julieta Garcia. A former president of the University of Texas at Brownsville, Garcia was the first Latina to become a college president, the White House said. She was named one of the nation’s best college presidents by Time magazine.
• Gabrielle Giffords. A former U.S. House member from Arizona, the Democrat founded Giffords, an organization dedicated to ending gun violence. She was shot in the head in January 2011 during a constituent event in Tucson and was gravely wounded.
• Fred Gray. Gray was one of the first Black members of the Alabama Legislature after Reconstruction. He was a prominent civil rights attorney who represented Rosa Parks, the NAACP and Martin Luther King Jr.
• Steve Jobs. Jobs was the co-founder, chief executive and chair of Apple Inc. He died in 2011.
• Father Alexander Karloutsos. Karloutsos is the assistant to Archbishop Demetrios of America. The White House said Karloutsos has counseled several U.S. presidents.
• Khizr Khan. An immigrant from Pakistan, Khan’s Army officer son was killed in Iraq. Khan gained national prominence, and became a target of Donald Trump’s wrath, after speaking at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
• Diane Nash. A founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Nash organized some of the most important 20th century civil rights campaigns and worked with King.
• Megan Rapinoe. The Olympic gold medalist and two-time Women’s World Cup soccer champion captains the OL Reign in the National Women’s Soccer League. She is a prominent advocate for gender pay equality, racial justice and LGBTQI+ rights who has appeared at Biden’s White House.
• Alan Simpson. The retired U.S. senator from Wyoming served with Biden and has been a prominent advocate for campaign finance reform, responsible governance and marriage equality.
• Richard Trumka. Trumka had been president of the 12.5 million-member AFL-CIO for more than a decade at the time of his August 2021 death. He was a past president of the United Mine Workers.
• Wilma Vaught. A brigadier general, Vaught is one of the most decorated women in U.S. military history, breaking gender barriers as she has risen through the ranks. When Vaught retired in 1985, she was one of only seven female generals in the Armed Forces.
• RaĂşl Yzaguirre. A civil rights advocate, Yzaguirre was president and CEO of the National Council of La Raza for 30 years. He served as U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic under Obama.

“This is a really good opportunity to put someone in office who won’t just listen to us, but who will actually be working with us and fighting for us in the Senate,” he said through a mask. “The Green New Deal, Medicare for All — these are things we really need in our society right now.”

Tuta and a dozen other members of the youth-led and climate-focused Sunrise Movement canvassed the neighborhood on behalf of Andrew Romanoff, who’s competing against former Gov. John Hickenlooper in a closely watched U.S. Senate Democratic primary.

After a campaign season unlike any other, in which part assemblies went virtual and in-person events ground to a halt for months, the final votes are due by 7 p.m. Tuesday. In addition to the Democratic U.S. Senate matchup, the 3rd Congressional District has primaries on both the Democratic and Republican sides, and there are a number of statehouse and district attorney primaries in the Denver metro area.

Romanoff enters Tuesday an underdog even though Hickenlooper had a rocky month that included two ethics violations. The former governor and Denver mayor isĚýthe favorite of the Democratic Party establishment both in Colorado and Washington, D.C., who compelled him to run for Senate last summer.

“This will be a campaign with mission,” Hickenlooper told supporters in a virtual pep talk Saturday. “The opportunity is there, if we can get people mobilized and make sure people vote — vote in this primary but then go out, get that muscle exercised, so they’ll vote in November. This could be the election that finally changes the world.”

“It’s going to be a long, hard battle,” Hickenlooper added, looking ahead as he often does to November’s contest against Republican Sen. Cory Gardner. “It’s going to be a brawl. … It’s going to be a long slog.”

Romanoff spent his final two weeks of the campaign distracted by a matter even more important to him than Tuesday’s election: the declining health of his father, who died Sunday after a series of strokes and falls. Hickenlooper sent his condolences, a gentle moment after a tense month in the head-to-head contest.

About 20 Democrats ran for U.S. Senate, but many top challengers bowed out after Hickenlooper entered in August. Eight remained until the spring, when only the moderate Hickenlooper and the progressive Romanoff made their way onto the June 30 ballot. An eleventh-hour court challenge to add other candidates who blamed the coronavirus for signature-gathering difficulties was approved by a Denver judge but later rejected by the Colorado Supreme Court.

And so, the past two months have been a head-to-head bout between the two. In three debates plus forums, television ads, press releases and speeches, Romanoff pulled few punches, laying out stark contrasts on health care, the environment, campaign finance and a slew of other top Democratic priorities.

Hickenlooper, meanwhile, largely avoided talking about Romanoff, keeping the focus on Gardner and President Donald Trump, in accordance with his long history of positive campaigning. When it did come time to criticize Romanoff, for running an accurate but attacking ad June 19, the criticisms came from Hickenlooper’s allies in the Colorado Capitol and in Congress, not from the candidate himself.

The two candidates have prioritized a similar trio of issues — health care, climate, and the economy — but laid out differing plans for dealing with them. Hickenlooper has often cited his past record as governor and Denver’s mayor, while Romanoff has emphasized more aspirational and ambitious plans for the future.

Romanoff has been popular with climate activists, championing a Green New Deal and claiming Hickenlooper is too close to Colorado’s oil and gas industry. He has been endorsed by many of the state and nation’s top climate activists, including former U.S. Senate candidate Diana Bray.

“I don’t necessarily trust the polls,” Bray said. “Everything is up for grabs, as a monumental reset is occurring, and I believe that Andrew will win the primary.”

Hickenlooper has been popular with gun control activists, winning endorsements from most major gun control groups in the country and campaigning alongside prominent activists in the movement, such as and Shannon Watts. The latter spoke at a campaign phone banking event Saturday.

“We have a chance to flip the Senate to a gun sense majority and that happens if (Hickenlooper) gets elected,” said Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action. “We are fired up and ready to go.”

Though that office is officially nonpartisan, a new digital ad that’s launching Wednesday draws on the National Rifle Association’s past support for Coffman to urge voters to reject him as the city’s next leader. It’s paid for by Giffords PAC, a group created by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords that supports Omar Montgomery, a Democrat, in the open five-way race.

The group says its $50,000 digital ad buy for the 30-second spot is targeted at motivating registered Democrats who are occasional voters to participate in the Nov. 5 municipal election. Aurora voters who fit that profile will likely see the ad online.

Coffman questioned the value of the effort in a statement provided by a spokesperson, saying in part: “The last thing we need is national politics infecting our mayor’s race. Aurora deserves better.”

But a leader of Giffords PAC was blunt in talking about the ad’s aim.

“We are fully aware of the fact that Mike Coffman is probably using this as a stepping stone to get back into higher office,” Giffords political director Joanna Belanger said in an interview, “and we want to make sure he is sort of cut off at the feet to do that. And we want to make sure someone like Omar is put on a trajectory to move forward.”

The ad buy is the latest evidence that Aurora, the site of the 2012 movie theater shooting that killed 12, has become a center of America’s gun control debate. Democratic presidential contender Beto O’Rourke hosted a town hall on guns in the suburban city last month, and Gabby Giffords appeared at an Aurora event in August with several Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, who defeated Coffman.

The new spot begins with an image from an early TV news report on the Aurora attack that featured on-screen text erroneously saying the shooting had claimed “at least 14” lives. The narrator says Coffman “had a chance to do the right thing” after the mass shooting but instead “went to bat for the NRA.”

The NRA bestowed an “A” rating on Coffman for his congressional votes in several cycles and donated more than $30,000 to his federal campaigns.

Coffman has defended gun rights while saying there’s room for “reasonable restrictions,” including red-flag gun legislation. But gun issues rarely have come up in the mayor’s race.

“I am focused on working with Aurora leaders to make a difference on behalf of everyone who lives in our city, and that’s why my No. 1 priority is working with law enforcement to reduce crime and protect our schools and neighborhoods,” Coffman said in his statement. “That¶¶Ňőap why both the Aurora and Arapahoe County chapters of the Fraternal Order of Police have endorsed my candidacy.”

The Giffords ad praises Montgomery — the president of Aurora’s NAACP chapter and a fellow gun violence survivor — as an advocate for gun policy reforms. It also points out his Democratic affiliation, which won’t appear on the ballot.

The other candidates in the mayor’s race are Ryan Frazier, Marsha Berzins and Renie Peterson, all current or former Aurora City Council members. Tiffany Grays is registered as a write-in candidate.

It was the same reason that Jason Crow, one of those who introduced her, is a congressman. It was the same reason that Tom Sullivan, who sat behind her that night, is a state legislator.

Seven years after a gunman walked into a theater here and killed a dozen people, Aurora has become a hub for gun control advocacy. It sent Crow and his gun safety platform to Congress, and compelled Sullivan, whose son was killed in the shooting, into politics. It has brought Giffords here , and will bring presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke here Thursday.

“It is what it is,” Sullivan said of Aurora’s notoriety. “We’re one of the ones that has a ‘strong’ name after them: Aurora Strong, Vegas Strong, Orlando Strong. Some of (the survivors) want to be involved. We are seeing some of them step up.”

Aurora has met an unfortunate fate unique to 21st-century America: It has seen its city name become a code word, a Twitter hashtag, a one-word reminder of the toll mass shootings have dealt to a weary nation. It shares that unwanted distinction with Newtown and Parkland and San Bernardino and many more. O’Rourke’s city met that same fate Aug. 3.

“As Beto’s hometown of El Paso recovers from a tragic mass shooting that claimed 22 lives, he plans to visit communities across this country like Aurora in order to hear directly from those who have felt the impact of the epidemic of gun violence and from whose example our country can draw inspiration and hope,” said his national press secretary, Aleigha Cavalier.

Sullivan says O’Rourke’s campaign initially reached out to him about organizing a possible town hall just days before the early August shootings in El Paso and Dayton, which only intensified O’Rourke’s focus on gun violence.

“He’s more energized to hear more about it and meet the people” affected by the Aurora shooting, Sullivan said. “Certainly with the location that it’s going to be at — that’s where is, and it’s about a stone’s throw from where the theater is. He wants to be in and see the impact on the community.”

The event will be in a cafe inside the Aurora Municipal Center.

Aurora Mayor Bob LeGare said he welcomes O’Rourke to the city but isn’t sure why he decided to hold his event in Aurora. He suspects the suburb is gaining more attention from national political figures because it’s a sizable city in a key primary state known for its immigrant outreach.

“It does make me wonder if they are trying to take advantage of the tragedy we had seven years ago,” LeGare said Wednesday, referring to the theater shooting.

The politics around guns, which can seem frustratingly static, have moved at least somewhat in Aurora. Crow and Sullivan, who both represent parts of the city, beat Republican incumbents last year after running on gun violence prevention platforms.

“Tom Sullivan did not win in 2016 on this issue,” said Jessica Price, a teacher who co-founded a branch of Moms Demand Action in Aurora, referring to a Sullivan suffered two years before his 2018 state House win. “So, I think even just the shift in the movement in that two-year time period made a huge difference. And that then shifted the thinking in Aurora when we saw two high-profile politicians running on this issue and both of them winning their elections in 2018.”

Aurora has a long history of gun violence, Price notes. That includes not only the 2012 theater shooting and the 1993 murder of four people at a Chuck E. Cheese, but also lower-profile street violence in some parts of the city. Gun violence prevention advocates talk about it all.

“Aurora has kind of become the hub of this gun violence prevention movement,” Price said. “I think it really has. We at Moms Demand Action have seen increased interest in the movement, increased numbers of volunteers, increased attendance at our meetings.”

With federal gun legislation often at a standstill in Congress, Aurora and Colorado represent, to gun control activists, proof that action can still occur. After the theater shooting, several state gun laws were passed. And this year, Sullivan led passage of Colorado’s red-flag gun legislation.

“We’re taking action and I think people are noticing that,” he said. “They’re coming down, you know, to see ‘What’s that conversation like, and how did you guys do that?’ ”

Updated Sept. 19, 2019, at 8:21 p.m.ĚýDue to a reporter’s error, this story initially misidentified the political affiliation of Aurora Mayor Bob LeGare. He ran as a Republican in a previous political race, but he’s currently registered as an unaffiliated voter and holds a nonpartisan office.

“Be bold, be courageous. The nation is counting on you,” Giffords told a standing-room-only crowd of about 150 people during a town hall meeting in Aurora.

Giffords was shot and nearly assassinated in early 2011 during a constituent event in Arizona. To focus on a lengthy recovery, she retired from Congress the following year and has since become one of the nation’s leading advocates for gun control measures.

On Monday night, she hosted the town hall event with three Democratic members of Congress from Colorado — Reps. Jason Crow, Joe Neguse and Ed Perlmutter — as part of her advocacy work in the Centennial State. Attorney General Phil Weiser and several state lawmakers were also in attendance.

“The good news is, the tide is turning,” said Crow, who represents Aurora and ran for Congress on a gun control platform last year. “The majority of Americans are with us” on gun control.

Neguse recalled being 14 years old and living 10 miles away in Highlands Ranch when the Columbine High School shooting occurred in 1999. His niece was a student at STEM School Highlands Ranch, but uninjured during the shooting there this May.

“Twenty years later — 20 years! — nothing has gotten done,” Neguse said of Columbine.

Giffords’ gun control group, also called Giffords, has broadcast two television ads in Colorado this month, urging Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner to support gun control measures. But there was only one direct reference to the senator Monday night: a call from state Sen. Rhonda Fields “to retire that Cory guy.” The line drew applause from the largely Democratic audience.

There were also a few indirect references to the 2020 election. Perlmutter, of Arvada, said either the U.S. Senate and president will pass and sign gun control measures “or we’re going to change that Senate and we’re going to change that White House.”

Fields, a Democrat whose district includes Aurora, criticized active shooter drills in one unnamed school district for urging students to fight, saying, “How are you going to fight somebody with an AR-15?” The senator said she plans to introduce legislation standardizing school shooting drills.

The event lasted 90 minutes, and featured a panel of gun control advocates, including a Columbine teacher, the director of March for Our Lives Colorado, and Sandy Phillips, whose daughter was killed in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting. Rep. Tom Sullivan, whose son was killed in that same shooting, was in the audience Monday night, sitting two rows behind Giffords.

Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund and Giffords, an organization started by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, are donating a combined $110,000 to stave off efforts to recall Colorado Rep. Tom Sullivan, D-Centennial, the groups are announcing Tuesday morning.

Colorado-based Moms Demand Action also pledged volunteers to go door-to-door and canvass on behalf of Sullivan, a freshman lawmaker whose son, Alex, was killed in the Aurora theater shooting.

“Voters knew exactly who they were electing when they sent Representative Sullivan to the general assembly … ,” Everytown President John Feinblatt said in a statement. “We are proud to stand with Representative Sullivan in the face of this cynical effort to undermine the will of the people.”

In 2013, two Democratic state senators were successfully recalled for their votes on gun control legislation while a third resigned to avoid a recall election. But this year’s effort appears to be sputtering.

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“We’re not confident,” Rocky Mountain Gun Owners Executive Director Dudley Brown said Monday when The Post asked whether the recall will get onto the ballot. “It¶¶Ňőap been tough work.”

The official recall committee hasn’t raised any money, according to online campaign finance records.

RMGO, however, recently advertised a Centennial office dedicated to Sullivan’s recall, and Sullivan supporters have reported running into paid signature gatherers outside local grocery stores. It’s not clear how much money they’ve spent on the campaign because the group’s political action committee doesn’t have to file a new financial report for a few more weeks.

And a few more weeks is all they have left. The deadline to submit 10,035 valid signatures from House District 37 voters to the Secretary of State’s Office is July 12.

Sullivan ran for office in 2018 with a promise to push what he described as laws that would help protect other Colorado families from the pain of gun violence. He defeated the incumbent Republican by 8 points.

He sponsored Colorado’s “red-flag” bill during the 2019 legislative session and told The Denver Post he planned to frame one of the pens Gov. Jared Polis used to sign it into law. The law, which goes into effect in January 2020, gives judges the power to issue extreme risk protection orders temporarily removing firearms from people believed to be a high risk of harming themselves or others.

Groups like Moms Demand Action and Everytown celebrated the bill signing. The latter began a national campaign earlier this year to educate Americans about red-flag laws in different states and to push state legislatures to consider adopting them.

But some conservatives and gun rights groups see Colorado’s new law as a threat to the Second Amendment as well as a potential violation of due process rights. The law will allow judges to order the initial seizure of firearms without the gun owner’s knowledge. Nearly half of Colorado’s counties have passed resolutions giving their local sheriffs permission not to enforce the order — and in some cases urging them not to do so.

“Sullivan has already made a difference at the state capitol and that has his opponents resorting to desperate tactics,” Giffords Executive Director Peter Ambler said in a statement. “We are standing with Rep. Sullivan in this fight to make sure that the demands from the majority of Colorado voters for gun reform will not be silenced.”

In just four days, the military veteran’s crowdsourced campaign for construction of the border wall has raked in more than $3 million in donations from more than 50,000 people as of early Thursday. Kolfage, a triple amputee who won a Purple Heart while serving in Iraq, is aiming to raise $1 billion for wall funding through the GoFundMe. He proposed on the GoFundMe page that if every one of the 63 million people who voted for Trump donated $80, they would get the wall that Trump promised them, echoing an idea included in a New York Post column over the weekend.

The 37-year-old Air Force vet of Miramar Beach, Florida, said in an email to The Washington Post that he decided to start the campaign on Sunday because “political games from both parties” have been holding back funding for the wall. He said his campaign, “,” was about “giving the people the power.”

“It’s time to stop playing games with voters,” Kolfage said in an email. “If we are told we’re getting something, make it happen.”

The campaign picked up steam this week, when Trump on Tuesday abandoned his demands that Congress allocate $5 billion for the wall or face a government shutdown. Trump had previously said he would be “proud” to shut down the government to get his wall money. But it quickly became apparent that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were not fond of that proposal. On Wednesday, Congress passed a short-term spending bill to avoid a shutdown by the Friday deadline – but that bill contained no money for Trump’s border wall, leaving its future in question as Democrats take over the House next month.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Tuesday that the administration would be seeking “other ways’ to fund the wall, such as by pooling available funds from other government agencies. Trump promised Wednesday morning on Twitter that “one way or another, we will win on the Wall!”

Could the government just take all the GoFundMe cash that Kolfage ends up raising? It’s complicated.

Republican lawmakers have introduced bills seeking to allow the Treasury Department to accept public donations for the purpose of funding the wall. Reps. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, and Diane Black, R-Tenn., have both filed bills seeking to create a “Border Wall Trust Fund,” which Black’s bill specifies would be appropriated to the Department of Homeland Security. Black’s proposal would even create a “commemorative display,” honoring all the donors who chipped in. But those bills are just sitting in committee and would seem unlikely to have much chance once Democrats take control of the House.

But Kolfage cited the possibility of new legislation on his GoFundMe page, assuring donors that he would find a way to ensure that “100 percent of your donations will go to the Trump Wall.” He assured them it would be possible by pointing to the 2012 Washington Monument restoration project. Congress allocated $7.5 million to repair damage to the monument following the 2011 East Coast earthquake, but sought a matching donation from the private sector. A philanthropist billionaire stepped up to help through the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit public-private partnership with the National Park Service.

Kolfage said he has established contact with the Trump administration, but declined to elaborate. White House officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the fundraising effort.

Kolfage’s campaign is far from the only private plan seeking to help the president pay for the wall, but is by far the most successful to date. Dozens of people have attempted to launch GoFundMe campaigns to help Trump fulfill his most ardent campaign promise, with most flopping after raising between a couple hundred to a couple thousand dollars, or even nothing.

Kolfage, however, has one thing the others don’t: the distinguished status as “the most severely wounded airman” to survive his injuries in history, as he put it on his website.

On Sept. 11, 2004, during Kolfage’s second deployment for Operation Iraqi Freedom, the airman woke in the middle of the afternoon feeling thirsty, and he left his tent to get water, according to his website. It was the last journey he would make on his feet. Within moments, his air base fell under attack. A 107 mm rocket shell exploded about three feet away from him, sending him airborne. The blast slammed him into a wall of sandbags. Bloodied but still conscious, Kolfage landed on the ground and yelled out for help. His right hand was hanging from his wrist by a thread, according to his biography. His legs were mangled, his lung collapsed. But Kolfage, who lost three of his limbs, managed to survive after returning to Washington for marathon surgery within 36 hours of the attack.

He’s since gained a national profile. He became a motivational speaker and has dabbled in politics, saying that he filmed a campaign ad for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., months before she was shot. He later attended President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address as her special guest in 2012.

Kolfage described his politics as “funky,” preferring straight shooters but not confined to one party. An ardent Trump supporter, he said on his GoFundMe page that his support from the wall stemmed from the belief that “too many Americans have been murdered by illegal aliens and too many illegals are taking advantage of the United States taxpayers with no means of every contributing to our society.”

For those who have questioned the feasibility of a crowdsourced national security project, Kolfage told The Post: “There’s always a way to do something. People who say you can’t would never survive living in my life. I keep hearing, ‘you can’t,’ or ‘It’s not even legal,’ but those are the people who will never step up to try to make a difference. Anything is possible.”

]]> /2018/12/20/trump-border-wall-go-fund-me/feed/ 0 3305234 2018-12-20T05:55:42+00:00 2018-12-20T06:05:22+00:00 /2018/11/03/democrats-gun-control-nra-midterms-jason-crow/ /2018/11/03/democrats-gun-control-nra-midterms-jason-crow/#respond Sat, 03 Nov 2018 10:14:00 +0000 ?p=3258723&preview_id=3258723 Democratic congressional candidates in suburban swing seats are embracing restrictions on firearms as election-related spending from pro-gun groups, including the powerhouse National Rifle Association, has plummeted.

The willingness to campaign on gun-control policies, including universal background checks and restrictions on assault weapons, runs counter to past elections, when candidates feared the topic could isolate moderate voters or prompt reprisal from the National Rifle Association, whose spending is down about 68 percent since the 2014 midterm elections. Groups calling for gun-control measures have injected nearly $12 million into the election, the most they have spent in an election cycle since at least 2010.

The candidates’ emboldened approach, combined with the changes in spending trends, reflect a shift in the politics of gun policy over the past two years. Polls show Americans are becoming more supportive of stricter firearm laws amid a spate of mass shootings.

“The convention in swing districts like this is don’t take it on, not in a purple or light blue district. It’s a wedge issue,” said Jason Crow, a Democrat running against Republican Rep. Mike Coffman in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District in the Denver suburbs. “But I believe the danger is in not taking this on anymore.”

Crow, a U.S. Army Ranger veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, often talks about hearing the news that a gunman with an assault rifle killed 12 people at a movie theater in Aurora, which is in the district.

“I’d used military-style assault weapons at work,” he said in an interview. “And had them used against me.”

Crow has called for a ban on assault weapons. Coffman’s campaign brushed off Crow’s stance as a fundraising strategy. Coffman, who was a co-sponsor on a bill on school safety and has pushed for guns to be taken from people who are determined to be potential threat, has an “A” rating and donations from the NRA.

“I certainly support the Second Amendment; however, I believe in responsible gun ownership,” Coffman said in an interview with Denver Westword.

On Thursday, days after 11 people were killed in a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, Everytown for Gun Safety launched a $700,000 ad buy against Coffman.

Support for stricter firearm laws has grown. According to an October Gallup poll, 61 percent of Americans said firearm laws should be more strict – a dip from 67 percent in March but still at a high point dating back to 2004.

For the past few years, Everytown had focused on changing laws in states where it saw a chance to make inroads, including Nevada and Washington. It is now trying to replicate that with congressional and statewide races.

“The momentum is with us, the NRA is on its heels and we think that it’s an opportunity to keep redrawing the map,” said John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown.

While most of the beneficiaries of Everytown’s money and endorsements are Democrats, the group – backed by billionaire and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, a potential 2020 presidential candidate – has also endorsed Republicans in tight races, including Rep. Carlos Curbelo in Florida.

Many candidates are also taking a more nuanced approach to gun control than politicians have in the past. Both Democrats and Republicans are using the term “gun safety” rather than “gun control” as a way to convey that they want to enact policies such as requiring universal background checks or safe storage of guns, not banning certain classes of weapons

While gun policy is not the top issue for most congressional battleground races, a recent Washington Post-Schar School poll found that 41 percent of people in battleground districts said gun violence was an “extremely” important issue in their vote for Congress this year. Gun control also resonates with younger Americans. A poll conducted in October by the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics showed school shootings were the top concern among Americans from the ages of 14 to 29.

Public outcry after the February school shooting in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 dead, further shifted the political landscape going into midterm season. In its wake, 19 states passed some form of gun legislation. They include Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican who is now in a tight race for Senate, signed a suite of gun control bills into law.

The shift is happening in both congressional and local races. Democratic gubernatorial candidates in states including Florida, Georgia, New Hampshire and Connecticut have all made gun control a major issue in their campaigns.

Some congressional candidates are using their personal experience with gun violence in their campaigns. In Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, Democrat Lucy McBath speaks about how her son, Jordan Davis, a black teenager, was killed by a white man over a dispute about loud music in Florida.

In California’s 48th District, Democratic candidate Harley Rouda is using gun control as a pivotal issue in his deadlocked race against Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher. The state’s 25th Congressional District race, between Republican Rep. Steve Knight and Democratic challenger Katie Hill, has also featured gun-control messaging.

Hill emphasizes that she is a gun owner who comes from a family of law enforcement officers and veterans. She is calling for universal background checks and raising the age to purchase firearms to 21.

“I believe that respecting the Second Amendment and advocating for gun safety measures are not mutually exclusive,” Hill said in a statement.

The NRA and other groups supporting gun rights have been far less active this election after ramping up their spending on advertising in every other cycle since 2010, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

In 2016, the NRA and other gun rights groups shelled out nearly $55 million on media and advertisements, CRP data show. This election, their spending has plummeted to roughly $9 million, the majority of which has come from the NRA.

The NRA has spent 2018 fighting a torrent of criticism, facing direct challenges by students, activists, corporate America and politicians. Perhaps in a reflection of the criticism, some Republican candidates running in tough congressional districts this year returned or did not deposit donations from the group, Mother Jones found.

States are also probing the organization’s insurance products; the organization is embroiled in a lawsuit with New York state over its Carryguard insurance policy.

But it remains a powerful political force. It is active in lobbying, and has a national grass-roots operation that mobilizes voters.

The NRA did not return multiple requests for comment.

The organization is boosting GOP Senate candidates in Missouri, Tennessee, Arizona, Indiana and Montana. Last week, the NRA’s super PAC spent nearly $900,000 over two days supporting Republicans in key Senate races, Federal Election Commission records show.

In comparison, gun-control groups have spent nearly $12 million this election, according to an analysis of federal spending records by CRP. While their spending still pales in comparison to the massive amounts gun rights groups injected in previous election cycles, it is the most gun-control groups have spent in one election cycle going back to 2010, CRP records show.

Giffords PAC, a gun-control super PAC founded by former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot at a campaign event in 2011, and her husband Mark Kelly, has injected nearly $6 million in races around the country, including Texas, Virginia and Minnesota. The group says far more political ads on gun control are running this year than in previous cycles.

“The change is pretty profound, and it’s been lightning quick,” said Peter Ambler, Giffords’s executive director.

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The Washington Post’s Emily Guskin contributed to this report.