Opinion: Continuing Colorado’s culture shift away from its death-cult gun zeal

With gun violence, it’s useful to start with the numbers.

Last year, there were 656 mass shootings in the U.S., the most on record except for 2021, when there were 689. There have already been 80 mass shootings this year.

More than 3,400 people have already died from guns this year, not including suicides. Almost 300 of those people were kids.

In Colorado, where there has already been a mass shooting this year, firearm deaths have increased over the last 10 years. Between 2016 and 2021, on average more than 900 people in Colorado died every year from guns, and the state in 2021 ranked 18th for gun-related deaths.

Those are the numbers. What do they mean?

They mean abject failure on the part of political leaders. They reflect a diseased society. They manifest the moral toxins of a deep-pocketed gun lobby and Second Amendment fanaticism.

The good news is that in Colorado some state lawmakers represent the voice of sanity.

In recent years, the Colorado Legislature has passed a series of gun violence prevention laws. These include extreme risk protection orders, reporting requirements for lost or stolen guns, safe storage requirements, a three-day waiting period between buying and taking possession of a gun, a minimum age of 21 to buy a gun, a gun industry liability protection roll-back, and a ghost gun ban.

Democratic lawmakers are advancing a whole new set of gun restriction bills this year. The measures would bar guns from sensitive spaces, require gun stores to obtain a state-issued permit, require gun owners to have liability insurance, prohibit teachers from carrying guns on campus, impose a new tax on gun and ammunition sales, require secure gun storage in a vehicle, and boost funding for state firearms crimes investigations.

Then there’s the proposed “assault weapons” ban.

Only three years ago, even after a gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle slaughtered 10 people at a Boulder grocery store, you could barely get state lawmakers to utter the words “assault weapon.” Then last year, semi-automatic rifle regulation was first introduced in the Legislature. It went nowhere — three Democrats joined Republicans to kill the bill during a committee hearing. Rep. Elisabeth Epps, a Denver Democrat, spearheaded the measure, and she is leading a similar effort this year.

Except this time, the bill passed out of committee. House Bill 24-1292 would ban the manufacture and sale — but not possession — of assault weapons in Colorado. After emotional testimony Tuesday that went past midnight, the bill advanced to the full House floor.

That’s remarkable progress.

The nation must escape the slaughter-friendly sway of firearm fundamentalists, whose crazed interpretation of the Second Amendment has twisted a right into a suicide pact.

Among the main arguments against a ban on so-called assault weapons is that such measures are ineffective and that other kinds of firearms are responsible for the vast majority of gun-related deaths.

A RAND study found that evidence of the effect that assault weapons bans have on mass shootings is inconclusive. Handguns are implicated in crimes, including mass shootings, far more than rifles.

But assault weapons are in a special class that warrants unique contempt.

The AR-15, the most prominent style of assault weapon, was originally designed for military use. Its lethality might be suitable for war but not the streets of America. Bullets fired from an AR-15 move so fast that the gun “can eviscerate multiple people in seconds,” The Washington Post reported last year.

A blood-spattered mythology has arisen around the AR-15, increasingly the weapon of choice for mass shooters. But for peaceful Americans, who just want to attend school and shop at the store without fearing for their lives, the AR-15’s status as perfectly legal shocks the conscience.

Bombs or armed tanks, were they legal for any civilian to own, would likely account for comparatively few deaths. Most people accept without protest that regulations are necessary for such destructive devices. Why wouldn’t the same be true for assault weapons?

Perhaps the greatest value of an assault weapons ban would be its contribution to a culture shift away from death-cult gun zeal. The nation must escape the sick sway of firearm fundamentalists, whose crazed interpretation of the Second Amendment has twisted a right into a suicide pact.

Numbers don’t lie. Americans are estimated to own 393 million of the 857 million guns in the world, or almost half of all civilian guns. Both common sense and scholarship arrives at the straightforward conclusion that more guns means more death.

The more we get rid of guns, the more we get to stay alive.

Editor’s note: This opinion column first appeared on Colorado Newsline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.