In the two days since a student at Denver’s East High School shot and wounded two adult staff members on Wednesday, students, parents and teachers have descended on the State Capitol demanding lawmakers take action to curb gun violence. It's the second time this month East High School has come to the Capitol demanding change.
Hundreds of students staged a sit-in at the statehouse on Thursday, and on Friday, thousands of protestors rallied on the Capitol steps. Just a few weeks ago, East High School students walked out of class and marched on the statehouse after one of their classmates died from the wounds he sustained in a shooting outside the school in February.
This week, on Thursday morning, students from several Denver-area high schools flooded into galleries overlooking the state House and Senate, and met with lawmakers in their offices to demand they pass all the gun-control bills they are currently debating.
“We're here today to make them pass everything that is on the floor right now related to gun prevention,” said Clara Taub, a sophomore at East High School and co-president of the school’s chapter of anti-gun violence group Students Demand Action.
“They need to pass everything. That's like the first step, baseline. It's certainly not enough, but we're not going to leave until they do.”Clara Taub, East High School sophomore
There are currently five gun-related measures being considered by the legislature, each focused on different firearm and gun industry regulations.
- One measure would impose a three-day waiting period on all gun purchases
- Another would raise the gun-purchasing age to 21.
- There is a measure that would make it easier for gun-violence victims to sue gun stores and manufacturers.
- Another bill would expand Colorado’s red flag laws, also called Extreme Risk Protection Orders, or ERPO laws.
- A fifth bill would essentially ban assault weapons in the state.
Taub and a dozen of her classmates met with Senate President Steve Fenberg on Thursday, who assured them most of the measures would be signed into law before the session is over.
“Most of those gun bills will be passed very shortly,” he said. “Definitely by early May, because that’s when we’re out of here, but it'll be before then.”
The only measure Fenberg isn’t confident about passing this year is the bill that would ban assault weapons, which he said has less support than the others, even among his fellow Democrats. It’s not clear whether Gov. Jared Polis, himself a Democrat, would sign the bill into law.
Fenberg said he supports an assault weapons ban, but expressed concern about how effective a state-level ban would be given that assault weapons would still be easily accessible in surrounding states.
“To be clear, I support banning assault weapons,” he said. “I do think really what we need right now is federal action. I'm not saying we're gonna slow down, because we don't have that happening. We're not by any means. But at the end of the day, an individual state can only go so far.”
Assault weapons were banned federally between 1994 and 2004, and according to the Giffords Law Center, mass shooting fatalities were 70% less likely to occur in that period than in the time before and after the federal ban was in effect.
Fenberg also talked to the students about measures he hopes will be brought forward in next year’s legislative session.
“We can't think of this as one session. We can't think of this as one election. It has to be a plan for the next five or 10 years,” Fenberg said. “What we also need to do is make sure that your voice is and the work that we're doing carries on with the next set of leaders that are going to be in the Senate and House and the governor's office.”
According to Fenberg, next year’s measures will include an effort to address ghost guns, which are sold in multiple pieces and are extremely difficult to track, and efforts to develop and require specialized licenses for gun stores.
Fenberg also said, moving forward, there are likely to be discussions about increased security in schools. After a public meeting following Wednesday’s shooting, Denver’s Board of Education requested that Superintendent Alex Marrero station two police officers in each of the city’s public high schools. The district pulled school resource officers, or SRO’s, from its campuses in 2020, saying the presence of law enforcement contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline.
The board also requested Superintendent Marrero place two mental health workers in each school.
East High School senior Alaijah Sims said she understands why SROs can be a problem, but that she doesn’t think steps to curb gun violence in schools will get results anytime soon.
“I agreed when they originally took SROs out. As a Black woman I did understand why that decision was made. But now having been influenced by gun violence in my school on multiple occasions, I do think that these steps are going to take time and things can't happen immediately. And until that happens, we need to have some sort of protection in our building.”Alaijah Sims, East High School senior
Colorado Republicans strongly oppose any new gun regulations, saying that they impede Coloradans’ second amendment rights. According to them, many people in Colorado, especially in rural areas, need guns to stay safe and support their livelihoods. The Democrat-backed gun measures would include some carve-outs for hunters and young Coloradans who use guns under supervision.
