Colorado Republican Rep. Don Wilson of Monument accidentally left a loaded Glock 9mm handgun in a restroom at the state Capitol last week.
In an apology on Twitter/X, Wilson claimed he “takes firearm safety very seriously,” which his behavior contradicts.
Wilson is the latest in a string of Colorado Republicans who have mishandled guns in and around the Capitol.
This is the debut video of the group “Mothers for Democracy,” a grassroots group that started as a protest group of Texas mothers who oppose Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s extreme agenda.
How lead is dispersed at shooting ranges (Georgia Dept. of Public Health/Seattle Times)
The Vertex Company LLC of Denver, which Ascent Classical Academy hired to test the old Rocky Mountain Gun Club building for lead contamination after the building was remediated, did the wrong kind of testing, says an specialist with Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE).
Caren Johannes of CDPHE’s Hazardous Materials and Waste Management Division Compliance Unit, who oversees closed shooting ranges, looked over online remediation report (pdf) that Ascent posted its website on August 11, 2023, and concluded that the Vertex Company did the wrong kind of testing for lead in the building, so their results will not be valid.
Advocates for Moms Demand Action, a gun violence prevention group, handed Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-CO) a pin on July 18 honoring 10-year old Maite Rodriguez, one of 19 children massacred in the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022.
Maite’s body was so mangled by gunfire that she was only identifiable by her favorite pair of green Converse tennis shoes with the heart drawn over the right toe that she was wearing that day. Maite, her fellow students and teachers were killed with an AR-style rifle. (Click here for a demonstration of why AR-15 style rifles are so much more damaging to the body than other types of firearms.)
Boebert promptly walked to a trash can with the pin and flier explaining its significance and tossed it into the can, right in front of the people who had handed it to her.
Are you aware of someone who owns firearms and is presenting a danger to themselves or others?
Colorado’s new Red Flag law was passed in 2019 and went into effect in January of 2020.
A Red Flag law is an “if-you-see-something-say-something” law put in place by the Colorado Legislature to give Coloradans a way to alert law enforcement to people who have guns and are posing a threat to themselves or others.
Red Flag laws, also called Extreme Risk Protection Orders or ERPOs, give judges the ability to seize the firearms of people who are posing a danger to themselves or others, to protect public safety.
The law was created to give people a way to try to head off incidents of lethal domestic violence, suicides and mass shootings like those currently proliferating across the U.S. in schools, shopping malls, theaters, grocery stores, universities, in parking lots, at parades, in offices and other places Americans go in the course of their everyday lives. As of May 8, 2023, there have been more mass shootings than there have been days in America, so the threat of mass killings being committed by people who own or possess firearms is very real and happening more frequently now than ever before in our history.
The law was used 73 times in the first 7 months after it was enacted and as of the end of 2022, it has been used more than 350 times.
Red Flag Law talk flier
The League of Women Voters and Grand Valley Interfaith network will be co-sponsoring a free talk, “Understanding Colorado’s Red Flag Law,” on Monday, May 22, 2023 at 7:00 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 536 Ouray Ave. The featured speaker will be Tom Mauser of Colorado Ceasefire, whose son, Daniel Mauser, was murdered in the Columbine High School shooting on April 20, 1999.
Lauren Boebert grinning in her vile T-shirt making fun of an accidental shooting death on a movie set
In the days after the tragic October, 2021 accidental shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins by Alec Baldwin while he was rehearsing a scene with a prop gun on the set of his movie, Rust, Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert relentlessly spewed vile, unconscionable jokes about the incident at Baldwin’s expense.
Boebert grinned as she wore a creepy T-shirt joking about the tragedy while out shopping.
 The former Rocky Mountain Gun Club building at 545 31 Road, where Ascent Classical Academy plans to open a new charter school this August. The sale of the building closed recently. It was listed for $7 million.
Ascent Classical Academy, a new charter school, plans to open in Grand Junction in August, 2023, in the building at 545 31 Road, that was formerly the Rocky Mountain Gun Club.
Parents contemplating sending their kids to this school should be concerned.
The building was used as an indoor shooting range for seven years, closing in 2021.
Lead contamination is a well-established problem at shooting ranges.

Derec Shuler, CEO of Ascent Classical Academies, in 2018 (Photo: YouTube)
Every time a bullet is fired, a puff of fine lead dust is emitted that gets onto floors, walls, countertops, door handles, the shooter’s clothing and, at indoor shooting ranges, into the ventilation system. Lead particles can be inhaled and ingested with food and drink. Elevated blood lead levels have repeatedly been found in recreational shooters who visit shooting ranges regularly, as well as employees of these ranges. Being exposed to lead contamination on an ongoing basis can have dire health effects. Professional remediation of these sites is an absolute necessity before they can be safely used for other activities.
The adverse effects of lead contamination on human health, especially on children, are well-documented.
According to the World Health Organization’s fact sheet on lead poisoning, “there is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects.”
WHO writes:
Young children are particularly vulnerable to the toxic effects of lead and can suffer profound and permanent adverse health impacts, particularly on the development of the brain and nervous system. Lead also causes long-term harm in adults, including increased risk of high blood pressure and kidney damage.
This situation should be of concern to parents contemplating sending their kids to this school, especially since the District 51 School Board’s conservative majority voted recently to cede control of the charter school to the Charter School Institute, an out of town, state-level organization, as a way to bypass local input and forego control over it.
No one is taking responsibility or answering questions about possible lead contamination at the site.
I contacted ReMax realtor Amy Rogers, whose name appeared in an online ad for the old Rocky MountainGun Club building. Rogers said she was not the listing agent for the property, and said “It is always the buyer’s responsibility to do the due diligence. Perhaps reach out to the buyer?” She gave me the number of the selling agent, Ray Ricard, but Mr. Ricard did not return a voicemail left on March 21 asking for contact information for the buyer. I also left a voicemail on 3/21 for the CEO of Ascent Classical Academies, Derec Shuler, at (720) 728-6300, ext. 1, the number posted online, since he would likely have to have approved the purchase of the building for the school, but Shuler did not answer the voicemail as of the writing of this article.
The community deserves to know if the Ascent Classical Academy’s organizers are aware of the lead contamination problem at sites used as indoor shooting ranges, and that this problem is highly likely to exist at the property they just purchased for the school. Parents and the public should know if Ascent has a plan in place to remediate the building prior to it opening as a school this August, and if they plan to verify that the remediation was effective enough to assure the building is safe enough for children and adults to inhabit for hours every day for years on end.
Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert’s joke portraying her district as a redneck hillbilly paradise drew embarrassment to western Colorado nationally on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert in Colbert’s monologue on February 2, 2023. The Late Show is broadcast nationally.
Lauren Boebert, Republican House Representative for western Colorado, appeared on “The Gorka Reality Check” on Newsmax yesterday evening and said that if an assault weapons ban is enacted in the U.S., people will start eating their dogs, because that’s what happened in Venezuela.
Boebert is currently running for a second term in the House. She dropped out of high school in 2004 to have a baby and got her G.E.D. in 2020, one month before the primary election. She’s running against Democrat Adam Frisch in the November, 2022 general election.
The show is broadcast on Newsmax on Sunday evenings at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
The national student-led group March For Our Lives will hold a local rally Saturday, June 11, from 10:00 a.m.-11:30 a.m. at the Old Mesa County Courthouse at 6th and Rood to demand legislators enact policy measures to reduce the epidemic of gun massacres now gripping America. The rally will feature local youth and adult speakers and a march through downtown Grand Junction and more.
AR-15 Assault Weapon, the “weapon of choice for mass shooters”
The Mesa County Republican Party has reached a whole new level of crazy in 2022, as indicated by a handout at their assembly at the DoubleTree hotel last Saturday, March 26, that lists the party’s recommendations for the statewide GOP platform. The local party will vote on which of these resolutions to forward to the state party for inclusion in the statewide platform.
According to the handout, some Mesa County Republicans now want to register and regulate journalists “to protect against the Marxist agenda.” They support “private ownership of AR-15s, 30-round magazines and semi-automatic weapons,” firearms described by CNN Money as “the mass shooters’ go-to weapon.” Local Republicans also support “making Ivermectin an over-the-counter (OTC) drug.” Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic drug commonly used as a horse-dewormer and in dogs to prevent heartworm.
Halayna Hutchins, a 42 year old cinematographer killed by the accidental discharge of a firearm on a New Mexico film set. She left behind a husband and 9 year old son. (Photo: Instagram)
Denver news anchor Kyle Clark in a commentary November 17 on his show “Next, with Kyle Clark” said journalists are holding Republican Colorado House Rep. Lauren Boebert to a lower standard than every other legislator because:
“If we held her to the same standard as every other elected Republican and Democrat in Colorado, we would be here near nightly chronicling the cruel, false, and bigoted things that Boebert says for attention and fundraising.”
So in an attempt to keep up with Rep. Boebert’s avalanche of cruel and vile behavior in the name of fundraising, here’s a recent one for you, and it’s about as cruel as you can get:
Screenshot of video in which Boebert accepts a gift of a a customized pistol
Rural Colorado United emailed out a video January 25th showing CD-3 House Rep. Lauren Boebert accepting a gift of a custom-engraved Glock pistol from the Colorado group Boots on the Ground Bikers for Trump.
The gift breaks several state and federal rules and laws:
1) It violates House ethics rules (pdf) which prohibit members of Congress from accepting gifts valued over $50. Glock 22s cost between $500 – $600 without custom engraving.
2) As of 2013 it is illegal in Colorado to gift a gun to someone who is not an immediate relative (pdf) without first performing a background check, and,
3) Unauthorized use of the Congressional seal is a federal crime.
The Mesa County Workforce Center prohibits weapons on its grounds.
Mesa County citizens volunteering as election judges were shocked to see others show up at their training session at the Workforce Center armed with guns. One volunteer, P.G., reported, “A guy walked into the Monday training with a gun on his hip, and the people giving the training didn’t say anything, even though I raised the issue.”
The volunteer felt bringing deadly weapons to an elections training was inappropriate and intimidating, and contacted Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, but Peters said she couldn’t do anything, saying “They’re allowed to do it.” Peters further stated that firearms are okay because “we are an open-carry state.” P.G. felt Clerk Peters should have informed election volunteers that they are attending the training as election judges, and not policemen, and should leave their guns at home.
The Mesa County Workforce’s website also says “No weapons are permitted on the premises,” but the trainer told P.G. that the Workforce Center did not prohibit carrying weapons.
Gage Lorentz, 26, was killed by National Park Ranger Robert Mitchell during a traffic stop for speeding on a dirt road in Carlsbad Caverns National Park March 21. Gage was unarmed and had no alcohol or drugs in his system at the time he was fatally shot. The family is calling for the arrest and prosecution of the park ranger who murdered him.
Police murdering unarmed citizens in cold blood doesn’t just happen to people from other places.
A National Park Ranger murdered a young Fruita man last March in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, as he was headed home to Fruita from Texas.
The murder was covered locally in March, but has taken on renewed significance after George Floyd’s brutal murder in Minneapolis shined a spotlight on the unchecked police brutality going on all across the nation.
Gage Lorentz was unarmed and had no drugs or alcohol in his system when he was pulled over for going too fast on a dirt road.
Mesa County residents fed up with the national epidemic of gun violence in the U.S. are teaming up with Mad Dog PAC of Washington, D.C. to run a billboard in Grand Junction aimed at pressuring congressional Republicans to address the national epidemic of gun violence and rampant mass killings happening around the country.
The billboard targets Colorado’s Republican Senator Cory Gardner in particular, who is up for re-election in 2020 and is known for taking no action and offering only prayers, platitudes and condolences after every mass killing that occurs.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives has already passed effective gun control legislation, but Senator Mitch McConnell (Republican, KY), Majority Leader of the Senate, has blocked the bill from coming to a vote to appease the National Rifle Association which works to stop legislation aimed at making Americans safer from gun massacres.
The anti-Cory Gardner/gun control message will be on the billboard on I-70B in front of Sprouts and Rimrock Marketplace, on the board facing west, where it will be visible to drivers coming into Grand Junction. The message will be up for one week starting next Tuesday, August 20, and will stay up longer if donations are received to keep it up longer. If enough funds are received the message will also go up on additional boards around town.
Contact Anne Landman for information on how to donate to the billboard campaign.
Trump banned bump stocks last December by executive action, and the new law is effective NOW.
Watch out, local gun nuts. President Donald Trump is coming for your guns.
Last December, President Trump issued an executive order banning bump stocks (pdf), devices that use the recoil energy generated from each shot of a semi-automatic rifle to increase the firearms’ rate of fire. The new rule amended the definition of “machine gun” to include bump stocks.
The ban went into effect three days ago, on March 26, 2019, exactly 90 days after it was published in the Federal Register.
On March 28, 2019 the U.S. Supreme Court refused an effort by gun nuts to block the ban, so Trump’s new rule is currently in full force, making anyone who owns a bump stock a felon.
