Did Colorado’s gun violence prevention director visit your community in 2025?

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

Did the director for the Office of Gun Violence Prevention come to your town? Part 2

I wanted to update a 2023 story (see the first link below for the original) about the all of the places the Director of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention went to in Colorado.

As with 2023, I don’t think you could call the list of places anywhere near representative of all the diverse views and experiences of this state.

I will let the current Director give you how she describes her yearly roundabout in her own words. Quoting her letter from the January 2026 newsletter out of the Office:

“What also helps me to feel grounded in focus is the perspective I gain through the conversations I’ve had and continue to have across Colorado. I’ve seen inspiring programs and real momentum in communities across the state, and that gives me hope. For example, the Routt County Local Public Health Authority used a mini-grant from the Office of Gun Violence Prevention to organize countywide gun safe distribution for residents of Routt and Moffat counties. Anticipating high interest based on local mental health and suicide prevention efforts, they held an initial 3-hour event and distributed 103 safes. The next day at the Oak Creek Farmer’s Market, they handed out 35 more.

Community response was overwhelmingly positive. Here are a couple of comments from community members:

‘I think this is a tremendous effort towards better child safety and limiting access to firearms to those with mental illness or suicidal ideation. The public messaging for gun safety is out there, but this is a step in a positive direction for those who may not be able to afford such items.’

‘I’ve been meaning to get a gun safe for many years, but just haven’t. Thank you for this opportunity!’”

As before I sent in a request to see the various trips the director undertook in 2025. The second link below is the list from her office showing what the trips were and their locations.

Granby and Colorado Springs.

Those were the only two places (well, if you discount a conference in Illinois and New York, both rock-red hot beds of conservative values and places where the Second Amendment is honored) outside of the Denver Metro area.

2 of 45 trips out of the office.

There are a lot of medical groups and workshops, but there are plenty of note that aren’t.

There’s nonprofit behemoth (I mean that quite literally, they’re in everything in this state including gun control) Rose Community Foundation.

There’s rabid gun control advocates State Senator Tom Sullivan and Representative Meg Froelich.

There’s gun control advocacy group Colorado Ceasefire (interestingly a grantee of the Office).

About the only group that I would be able to characterize as involving anyone on the opposite side of the ideological divide from these latter three would be the Colorado Firearm Safety Coalition.

Ignoring the fact that likely many of the seminars and medical events were ideological echo chambers, look at that ratio there.

Three gun control groups to one group which contained gun shop owners and firearms instructors.

If the perspectives the director is getting are grounding here, I would have to say that the ground looks pretty tilted from my perspective, the conversations she’s having are likely pretty one-sided.


https://coloradoaccountabilityproject.substack.com/p/did-anyone-from-the-office-of-gun?utm_source=publication-search

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vf5IvPiELj0RH5OI5hcXSuT8LdfE0l2x/view?usp=sharing

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

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