February 08, 2023 01:40 PM UTC

RMGO: Don't Count Black Kids in Gun Violence Statistics

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• by: Colorado Pols

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: 9NEWS’ Kyle Clark followed up yesterday evening with Rocky Mountain Gun Owners’ Kevin Lorusso, who stands by his suggestion to exclude young Black males from gun death statistics:

Apparently you can contact Mr. Lorusso for an apology on a case-by-case basis, but we’re guessing it will contain the word “snowflake.” In the absence of any official Republican condemnation, we’re left to conclude that Mr. Lorusso speaks for the gun lobby as a whole.

And they like the racist stuff he says.

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UPDATE: Sara Loflin of liberal activist group ProgressNow Colorado condemns Rocky Mountain Gun Owners for their “racist and immoral devaluation of Black lives.”

“Black lives matter, and every single victim of gun violence matters,” said ProgressNow Colorado Executive Director Sara Loflin. “The epidemic of gun violence has wreaked immeasurable harm to families, communities, and our nation. For the gun lobby to suggest ‘removing’ Black males under the age of nineteen from gun death statistics in order to understate the total impact of gun violence is a racist and immoral devaluation of Black lives, and an affront to the humanity of every person of color in America. The death of children caused by gun violence in America is an assault on our future, and must never be racially downplayed to achieve a desired statistic. It is deplorable that anyone would suggest otherwise.”

“What surfaced yesterday in the Colorado House State Affairs Committee is simply racism that still holds sway among far too many conservatives in America today,” said Loflin. “It’s a sad reality that Kevin Lorusso speaks for a substantial number of Republicans who believe BIPOC families are outsiders in their own communities. The racism on display in the committee hearing yesterday has no place in Colorado politics or in our legislature, and must be condemned without partisan distinction.”

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State lawmakers discussed two bills related to expanding rights for gun owners on Monday in the State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs committee. It didn’t take long for Republicans to lose their minds during the testimony, which included an absolutely disgusting comment from a representative of the militant gun rights group Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.

The conversation in the State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs committee centered around HB23-1044 “Second Amendment Preservation Act” (sponsored by Rep. Ken DeGraaf) and HB23-1050 “Protection of Business from Unlawful Entry” (sponsored by Rep. Ty Winter). HB-1044 is a ridiculous attempt to override even federal regulations on firearms. HB-1050 basically allows business owners to shoot whoever they want.

About 90 minutes into the testimony, as you can hear in the clip below, Democratic State Rep. Kyle Brown makes a point about gun violence being the leading cause of death for American children. Kevin Lorusso — who said he was testifying “on behalf of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners and our more than 200,000 members and supporters across the state of Colorado” — then responds with a truly despicable claim:

REP. BROWN: According to an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, firearms are the leading cause of death for American children. More than 5 deaths per 100,000 Americans between the ages of one and 19 were due to guns in 2020.

KEVIN LORUSSO: Uh, yeah, so if you remove Black males from that age group from that, it is not true. And that is a symptom of a different issue. The issue that is causing young Black males to be killed in their homes, on their streets, is a very different issue. [Pols emphasis]

Wow.

Lorusso’s argument has something to do with his belief that Black kids are killed primarily with guns that were acquired illegally. We would assume that most of those guns were once manufactured legally, but that’s not the point here. A prominent gun rights group is arguing in public that national statistics about gun deaths among children shouldn’t count Black kids.

Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO) is a self-described “no compromise” gun rights organization that is tied into the National Association of Gun Rights (NAGR); both organizations share many of the same goals as the National Rifle Association (NRA), though RMGO and NAGR are further to the right than the NRA. Here in Colorado, RMGO has a sordid history that has led them to be called “Colorado’s Taliban.” In 2019, RMGO was blasted by Republican Cole Wist over their efforts to recall then-Rep. Tom Sullivan, a Democrat who had defeated Wist the previous November (now a State Senator, Sullivan’s son Alex was among those killed in the 2012 Aurora Theater Shooting).

This was not the only questionable line of argument made by Republicans on Monday. Both Reps. Ken DeGraaf and Scott “There is No” Bottoms angrily questioned the motives of a handful of teenagers from different chapters of “Students Demand Action” who had come to the State Capitol to testify in opposition to the bills.

While RMGO may have extreme views on gun ownership, they also have plenty of supporters in the Colorado Republican Party. Both DeGraaf and Bottoms were formally endorsed by RMGO in 2022 and received contributions to their campaign coffers. In its pre-Primary endorsement, RMGO wrote that Bottoms “is passionate about defending the Second Amendment from its political enemies.”