Colorado should outlaw detachable magazines

In March of 2021, a shooter walked into my neighborhood King Soopers and used a semi-automatic pistol paired with multiple high-capacity magazines to enable him to murder 10 of our beloved neighbors, friends and family members, terrorizing many others and traumatizing our community. By using detachable magazines, a shooter can reload ammunition quickly and shoot more people. Furthermore, the ease and efficiency of switching out magazines leaves those who might otherwise intervene with a shooter, like law enforcement officers, without enough time to do so between rounds of bullets. The detachable magazines that the King Soopers and Club Q shooters used have been illegal in Colorado since 2013, but are easy to obtain at gun shows or across state lines.

A new bill recently introduced in the current Colorado state legislative session (SB25-003) will add to the impressive portfolio of gun violence prevention legislative measures that Colorado has passed in recent years. This bill would allow our state to enforce the prohibition on high-capacity magazines by requiring that any new semi-automatic rifles and shotguns sold in our state use fixed rather than detachable magazines. This will decrease the lethality of weapons that may be used to shoot more of our neighbors, friends and loved ones.

Gun manufacturers can easily make these modifications, and such weapons are already sold in several states in the US.

No individual bill will completely eliminate gun violence in our communities, but SB25-003 is another step towards making us safer, along with other meaningful gun violence prevention laws that have been passed in the last few years.

Reach out to your representatives to let them know you support this piece of legislation, and, if you’re inclined, thank Reps. Junie Joseph and Lesley Smith and Sen. Judy Amabile for their courageous sponsorship of this bill.

— Tina Pittman Wagers, Boulder

Not everyone has the ability or abundance to start over

As the wildfires ravage California, I am buying a set of salt and pepper shakers, a rubber spatula and an oven mitt at the Dollar Store on South Boulder Road.

Three years after the Marshall Fire, evicted from the home that was my refuge upon the total loss of mine to the fire, I am starting over, again …

I am now 71 years old.

As I follow the fires in California, I feel the numbness of total loss, once again. I know the pain of “recovery” that lies ahead for those displaced. Truly, there is nothing to recover. It’s reinvention with what remains.

I recall the surrealistic inferno that nearly consumed everything. My son and his partner, burned by a fire tornado that torched their vehicles in my driveway, fled the flames on foot. Miraculously, they survived. I recount the destruction and devastation of the Marshall Fire, its costly impact, and remind others not all those affected by the fires have the abundance or ability to start over, again …

— Sandy Rich, Lafayette

Louisville should expedite juniper shrub removal

It’s been three years since the Marshall Fire. The multi-million dollar rebuilding effort near Harper Lake has been impressive. The LA fires remind me that our far less expensive wildfire mitigation effort is proceeding at a much slower pace. In the summer of 2024, Louisville recognized that “junipers are highly flammable” and removed all juniper shrubs from the north shore of Harper Lake. There were, and still are, many juniper shrubs on city space along Washington Road on the south side of the lake. Where houses burned, the junipers burned. But more than thirty juniper shrubs remain where houses did not burn. These shrubs are positioned close to HOA fences and become packed with dry wind-blown leaves in the winter. If removal of these shrubs is already in the wildfire mitigation plan, perhaps the city could expedite their removal by calling for volunteers from the neighborhoods bordering Washington Road. Put my name on that volunteer list!

— Peter Harrington, Louisville