Category: Gun violence

More case for gun reform, and fast: Firearms cause massive blaze in Basalt

The Lake Christine fire in Basalt last night, with Whole Foods Market in the foreground. Photo credit: Colorado State Patrol/CBS.

As if firearm massacres occurring regularly throughout the U.S. isn’t enough of a red flag that we need enact gun reform and fast, investigators have found that the massive wildland fire currently raging in Basalt was caused by the illegal use of “tracer bullets” at a firing range.

Tracer bullets have a small pyrotechnic charge  in the base that cause the bullets to leave a bright, burning track of smoke along their trajectory so that when fired, the path of the bullet is visible to the naked eye. The pyrotechnic charge is basically a firework.

Two people shooting tracer rounds at the Basalt SWA firing range caused the Lake Christine fire that is now wreaking havoc in Basalt. It is illegal to use tracer rounds during the current fire ban. The shooters were cited, but that does little to stop the damage their irresponsible use of firearms is causing.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife has closed the Basalt shooting range indefinitely.

Massive damage

As of an hour ago, the Lake Christine fire had burned over 2,000 acres, three homes have been destroyed, 500 people have had to evacuate their homes and the fire remains completely uncontained.

Tracer fire at night on Finnish-Soviet border in 1939. (Source: Book Suomi Sodassa, Valitut Palat Oy 1973)

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun illegally shooting pyrotechnic bullets at a firing range during a fire ban is tens of millions of dollars and thousands of firefighters putting their lives on the line to fight the massive fires they cause.

No further proof is needed that gun ownership rights are misused in a multitude of irresponsible ways on a massive scale in this country. It’s long past time we  did something about it.

To fight efforts to roll back the widespread irresponsible use of firearms in this country and the horrific damage it causes is to be a fake patriot and say you don’t care about America at all.

Western Slope pastor and Mesa County “Patriots” display stunning callousness towards refugees, children

Reverend Babcox, Orchard Mesa Baptist Church

Amid the massive “Keep Families Together” protests in over 750 cities across the country including in Grand Junction last weekend against the Trump administration’s harsh “zero tolerance” immigration policy that separated thousands of refugee children from their parents, some Mesa County citizens are publicly denying that any children of refugees have been taken away from their parents, while also denying there is anything wrong with doing it. Others show utter disdain towards immigrant parents for taking desperate measures to get their families out of harm’s way.

Of all people, Robert Babcox, the pastor of the Orchard Mesa Baptist Church, is one of those people.

It’s time to stop advertising guns.

In keeping with the culture of linking of firearms to masculinity, Daily Sentinel ran a Sportsman’s Warehouse’s ad promoting guns as gifts for Father’s Day, 2018

It’s time for our local paper, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, and other publications to stop advertising guns. This is the rock-bottom minimum that can be done to end the glorification of guns and senseless proliferation of gun violence in society. It is the metaphorical lifting a pinky finger to take action against a problem, but it is necessary.

Given the rate at which gun massacres are happening in our country, as a matter of health and safety, it’s time to just stop promoting guns in any way, and nowhere is this more true than in Mesa County.

Don’t be fooled. Gun massacres are about GUNS, not mental illness.

Yes, President Trump, it IS a ‘guns situation.’

In the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, Republicans are claiming that the easy availability of guns in the U.S. isn’t even a factor in our national epidemic of mass shootings. Instead they point to mental illness as the only factor that should be considered.

Hogwash.

Grand Junction’s huge anti gun-violence march and rally

Around 3,000 people attended Grand Junction, Colorado’s March for Our Lives, on Mach 24, 2018. It was one of 800 “sibling” marches  happening around the country and the world at the same time as the main March for our Lives in Washington, D.C., organized by students who survived the February 14 gun massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

The attendance at Grand Junction’s march was impressive given that this area of Colorado has long been considered a gun-friendly, conservative stronghold. That may not be the case any more, as many gun owners are joining with the students in saying there are now too many guns in too many people’s hands, and a higher priority should be put on people’s safety rather than on guns.

Such significant participation in an event like this was unthinkable as recently as just a couple of years ago.

Get ready, Mesa County Republicans. President Trump wants to take your guns!


President Trump on Wednesday called for seizing guns belonging to people who are deemed to present a danger to others without allowing them due process first.

“I like taking the guns early, like in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida … to go to court would have taken a long time,” Trump told a group of lawmakers at a meeting about school safety and gun violence.

“Take the guns first, go through due process second,” Trump said.

Republicans at every level of government have blood on their hands for U.S. gun massacres

CO Senator Cory Gardner has taken $3.8 million from the NRA and reliably votes against measures to reduce gun violence in the U.S.

Another day, another gun massacre.

Still Republican legislators don’t even lift a finger to address it. “Thoughts and prayers” is their only response, since it holds off action on the insane proliferation of guns in this country, and blocks discussion of what can be done about mass gun violence in the U.S.

There is only one reason why gun massacres are now a common occurrence: America is awash in guns. It’s way too easy to get guns, even extremely dangerous ones, and it has been for far too long. People can  legally amass entire arsenals. The colossal number of guns washing around in the U.S. compared to other countries makes it extremely easy for anyone with even the most petty grievance to use a gun to settle a perceived score by killing people en masse.

And that’s exactly what is happening.

Buy a gun for Father’s Day? Think again.

Shame on Sportsman’s Warehouse for advertising guns on sale for Father’s Day. Mesa County has one of the highest suicide rates in the country, and women comprise 75% of all fatal domestic violence victims by guns in the U.S.

Sportsmans’ Warehouse ran a big ad in today’s Daily Sentinel touting a big sale on guns and ammo for Father’s Day.

This does our area a big disservice.

There is a huge intersection between fatal domestic violence killings and guns, and keeping guns in the home raises the risk of homicide, suicide and accidental shootings tremendously.

In Colorado alone, there have been 105 domestic violence homicides by gun since 2006.

Focus on the Bright Spots in the Election

sunrise-sunset-sun-calculatorHalf the country woke up this morning despondent, demoralized and in utter dread of what a Trump presidency will mean to this country. We’ve never had a president before who confessed on video to sexually assaulting women and who is endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. We’re about to find out what that’s like, but everyone — including conservatives — might end up being surprised by what Trump will actually do while he’s in office, since he earned a 76 to a 91% lie rate for everything he said while on the campaign trail. The New York Times even dubbed him “Lord of the Lies.” If it was the right wing’s goal to throw a molotov cocktail into the government of the country they supposedly love so much, then they succeeded.

Pinkwashing Gun Deaths: Sportsman’s Warehouse’s “Shoot for a Cure”

Sportsman's Warehouse tells people they can help cure breast cancer by buying and shooting guns

Sportsman’s Warehouse newspaper ad tells people they can help cure breast cancer by buying and shooting guns

It’s October again, that time of year when pink gets slapped on all kinds of products, from toasters to waffle makers to beer pong tables, and ads urge people to buy stuff to prevent breast cancer.

Now Sportsman’s Warehouse has jumped into the fray, running newspaper ads selling pink guns and urging people to “shoot for a cure.”

Ick.

How inappropriate is this?

Let’s count the ways.

Another “Responsible” Mesa County Gun Owner at Work?

From the Saturday, February 20, 2016 Daily Sentinel. "Oops! Anybody seen my lost handgun?"

From the Saturday, February 20, 2016 Daily Sentinel: Oops! Anybody seen my lost handgun?

Incredibly, Colorado has no law requiring firearm owners to report the loss or theft of a firearm. One study (pdf) found that states without mandatory lost or stolen gun reporting laws export two and a half times more crime guns across state lines than jurisdictions with such laws. Eight-five percent of lost or stolen guns are never recovered, and police say stolen and illegal guns are at the root of violence across the country.

Need We Ask Why?

Mesa County has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation, and most suicides are by gunshot wound. Need we wonder why?

Mesa County has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation, and most suicides in our area are from gunshot wounds. The above photos show how the local gun culture contributes to this situation. If the most common method of suicide in Mesa County was arson, would hardware stores put their blow torches on sale?

Planned Islamaphobic Rally Fizzles in Face of Opposition by Peaceful Mesa County Citizens

Anti-Islamaphobia rally particpants in Grand Junction today had plenty of signs indicating how they felt about an armed rally by Islam-haters that was planned for the same spot, but never materialized

Participants in Grand Junction’s Anti-Islamaphobia rally had plenty of signs indicating how they felt about an planned protest by armed Islam-haters that was supposed to be held in the same spot, but never materialized

Mesa County residents blocked an armed Islamaphobic uprising from materializing today by gathering at a Grand Junction Islamic Center with enthusiasm, lots of free cookies and plenty of big, handmade signs promoting peace, love and diversity.

Anti-Islamaphobia rally participants hold signs in Grand Junction

Anti-Islamaphobia rally participants hold signs in Grand Junction

The anti-Islamaphobia rally was held to counter the so-called “Global Rally for Humanity,” an armed protest against local Muslin residents that right-wing gun nuts had planned. Similar protests aimed at intimidating U.S. Muslims were planned in 20 cities nationally; Grand Junction’s was to be one of them.

But thanks to strong, organized opposition, the Islam-hating rally pulled it’s Facebook event announcement page and never materialized.

Waves of residents who abhorred the idea of Mesa County being known as a hotbed of Islamaphobia attended the peace rally, which went on all morning and into the early afternoon. They held up signs on I-70B stating a need for a more diverse, loving western Colorado. Many cars honked as they went by and gave a thumbs-up to the event.

RealPatriotsIn one brief incident, four right-wing Islam-haters did show up, but all they did was make some rude gestures, call the group “delusional,” take a selfie with rally participants and then leave. Otherwise the group was completely successful in blocking the planned armed demonstration of hatred against Muslims that was to take place.

Congratulations, citizens of 21st century Grand Junction. You’ve showed that the culture is at long last really changing here, and it has already changed enough that political sanity can occasionally prevail.

Islamophobic Mesa County Group Gets Pushback

RallyAgainstA fringe right-wing Mesa County group that planned an open-carry protest October 10 in front of a Grand Junction mosque was forced to back down after a counter protest that was quickly organized via social media at the same place and time drew far more participants than the Muslim-hater event.

The larger (national) anti-Islamic group “Global Rally for Humanity,” which organized the protest at the mosque, was formed by a combination of the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters*, two radical, militaristic pro-gun, fringe right-wing groups that Mother Jones magazine calls “the Tea Party’s military wing.”

Gun Safety Advocates Outnumber Gun Nuts at W. Slope Hearing on SB 175

ALL IN FAVOR? - Only two people -- Mesa County Commissioner John Justman and one other person -- showed up to testify in favor of making large-capacity gun magazines legal again in Colorado at today's hearing on SB 175 at CMU

Only two people — Mesa County Commissioner John Justman and one other person — showed up to testify in favor of re-legalizing large-capacity ammunition magazines in Colorado at today’s hearing on SB 175 at CMU

Grand Junction citizens who support keeping Colorado’s ban on large capacity gun magazines far outnumbered those showing up who want to dump the ban at today’s remote hearing on the measure at Colorado Mesa University (CMU).

Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee members in Denver heard remote testimony from western slope residents on SB 175 (pdf) via a video hookup in the West Ballroom at CMU. If enacted, the measure would repeal a law currently in place that prohibits possession of large capacity ammunition magazines. The legislature enacted the current magazine ban after the Aurora Theater massacre on July 20, 2012.

The crowd showing up to testify on today’s bill wasn’t big, but was remarkable for the fact that gun safety advocates far outnumbered those showing up to support legalizing large capacity ammo magazines. Exactly the opposite had been expected.

ALL OPPOSED? - Nine western slope residents (including the photographer) showed up to oppose bringing back large capacity gun magazines in Colorado at today's hearing on SB 175

Nine western slope residents (including the photographer and another not yet seated) showed up to oppose bringing back large capacity gun magazines in Colorado at today’s hearing on SB 175

Mesa County Commissioner John Justman was one of only two people who supported bringing back large capacity ammo magazines, even though twenty four people had registered to testify for the bill. Nine people showed up to testify in favor of keeping the current ban in place.

Recipe for Disaster: Colorado Riverfront Trail Users Unprotected from Gunfire

The morning sun glistens on the Colorado River on the Monument View section, where hunters are allowed to shoot at birds in the very same vicinity where paths beckon people to run, walk and bike by to the river.

The morning sun glistens on the Colorado River on the Monument View section, where hunters are allowed to shoot in the same vicinity where people run, walk and bike by the river.

The Colorado Riverfront Trail is a huge asset to Mesa County citizens’ quality of life. It beckons residents and tourist to run, walk and bike amid the beautiful scenery alongside the river.

But frequently gunfire occurs around parts of the paths located outside City limits. Many times the sound of loud gunfire next to the path has reduced my dog to a quivering, drooling mass of fear. He digs in his toenails, shakes uncontrollably, refuses to walk any more and has to be lifted or dragged away from the area. The gunfire turns an otherwise pleasant, enjoyable time on the path into a nightmare for us and our dog, and cuts short the time we usually reserve for our morning walk. We have to drag the dog back to the car, leave the area and find somewhere else to walk where he — and we — don’t feel threatened.

So many of our riverfront walks have been ruined this way, I start to wonder why we ever go back. I have quietly wondered, too, if my dog is justified in being so frightened, and whether I should be a bit more concerned for my own safety.

Based on what I found out, I absolutely should.

On the Monument View section of trail, about 1/2 mile east of the Walker Wildlife parking area, there are two small, ominous signs — one facing in either direction — that say “Active Hunting Area. Please stay on trail and respect hunter’s rights.” But what, exactly, does this mean to people using the trail? The signs don’t say what to do if gunfire comes your way. They give no assurance you will not be hit by errant gunfire while on the trail. It doesn’t say where the hunters are or in what direction they shoot. It doesn’t give the dates of hunting seasons or point to protective barriers or cover.