Zealotry and Gunfire in Colorado Springs

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Colorado Springs is a city of approximately half-a-million people located south of Denver on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains near Pike's Peak.  According to news reports, the fairly large city was home to only one gay-oriented nightclub, an establishment called "Club Q."  I used the past tense in referring to the club because it is now closed due to a horrific shooting there this past Saturday night.

A lone gunman entered Club Q late Saturday evening carrying an AR-15 assault rifle and a pistol.  He immediately opened fire with the rifle managing to kill five individuals and cause injury to around twenty-five others, some of whom remain in critical condition today.  The shooter was quickly confronted and subdued by two patrons of the club, one of whom grabbed the young man's pistol and struck him with it, knocking him to the floor where he was restrained until police arrived minutes later.

The shooter, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, was somehow wounded in the shooting.   He was arrested and removed to an area hospital for treatment.  Aldrich was already known to local law enforcement due to a June 2021 incident in which he threatened his mother with a homemade bomb - causing a neighborhood evacuation.  No charges were filed from that incident, nor was Colorado's 2019 Red Flag law activated.

Colorado Springs has a long and troubled history with right-wing religious extremism.  It is the home of James Dobson's "Focus on the Family," and also the United States Air Force Academy, a military institution long known for its fundamentalist Christian leanings.  And while the city may only have one gay bar, it has an abundance of churches, pawn shops, and gun stores.

Colorado Springs was also where a 2015 attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic occurred in which three people (including one policemen) were killed by a lone gunman, and five others (including two more policemen) were wounded.

El Paso County, Colorado, where Colorado Springs is located, is one of a large group of counties nationwide to declare itself a "Second Amendment Sanctuary" to protect what the county recognizes as a constitutional right to bear arms.  The sanctuary resolution was passed by the county in 2019 in response to the state's new (at that time) Red Flag law.   The resolution stated opposition to the Red Flag law by declaring that it "infringes upon the inalienable rights of law-abiding citizens" by ordering police to "forcibly enter premises and seize a citizen's property with no evidence of a crime."  Sanctuary counties and localities often stand in opposition to state and federal gun laws, and they are regarded as purely symbolic with no legal weight.

But while Colorado Springs and El Paso County may be mired in religious fundamentalism and gun-zealotry, the state of Colorado is more open-minded.  Governor Jared Polis, the first openly gay man to serve as governor of Colorado - or any other state in the nation, for that matter - issued the following statement in response to this weekend's shooting:

“This is horrific, sickening, and devastating. My heart breaks for the family and friends of those lost, injured, and traumatized in this horrific shooting. I have spoken with Mayor Suthers and made it clear that every state resource is available to local law enforcement in Colorado Springs. We are eternally grateful for the brave individuals who blocked the gunman likely saving lives in the process and for the first responders who responded swiftly to this horrific shooting. Colorado stands with our LGTBQ community and everyone impacted by this tragedy as we mourn together."

While many in Colorado Springs may see hatred of the already-marginalized as the path to glory and salvation, the people in charge of their state have a more humane and Christ-like view of the world. May they prevail.