City becomes hub for gun control advocacy
The message is loud and clear: “We’re taking action”
When Gabrielle Giffords, the former congresswoman who became an assassination target and then a gun control advocate, spoke to an adoring crowd of like-minded activists and policymakers Aug. 26, there was a reason she was standing in Colorado’s third-largest city.
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 twice in a month, 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 21stcentury 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 the 7-20 memorial garden 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,” the Republican 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 state Senate race loss 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 redflag 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?’ ”