Jerilyn DeCoteau: King Soopers: Employees are family

We’ve been shopping at the Table Mesa King Soopers store for 36 years. Our daughter worked there during high school, and again during college.  Some of her co-workers are still there.  One clerk sometimes asks me how she is doing.  My daughter is 45 years old!  They remember her because King Soopers employees are a family. We know so many of the workers and so many shoppers, neighbors with whom we linger in aisles and over produce to visit and catch up on our lives.  We learn of births, graduations, marriages, divorces, illnesses and passings.  We plan gatherings, dinners, celebrations.  King Soopers is an extension of our families and homes.

I can’t wrap my mind around what happened.  I am tired, as we all are, of these slaughters of innocents. I am tired of hearing them euphemistically called “shootings,” of murderers being called “shooters,” of hearing that dead people “didn’t make it out.”  They weren’t trying to make it out, they sensed no danger, they were safe, as they always were at King Soopers. They were slaughtered, massacred, with no chance to react.  Even a trained, fully armed policeman was no match for a sniper with an automatic gun.  Monday’s slaughter most certainly was enabled by federal policy protecting a “right” to use firearms designed solely to quickly and efficiently kill large numbers of people.  No one was merely injured. If they were hit, they died.

I’m mostly tired of our leaders who won’t fix this. Their refusal to act bespeaks their indifference.  We know the ravages of a pandemic. What happens when we have a pandemic of hopelessness?

Jerilyn DeCoteau

Eldorado Springs

Ann Lamson: Flagstaff star: Giving us hope

The presence of the glowing star on the horizon brings us hope and comfort in this dark time.  It is a beautiful Boulder tradition and a brilliant way to honor the ten victims of the tragic shooting at King
Soopers.  Thank you to the city of Boulder for having the wisdom to brighten our deepest sadness with this simple, yet powerful gesture.

Ann Lamson

Boulder

Theodore Costantino: NRA is wrong: More guns, more harm

Don Morris asks how many would have died if a couple of other people at King Soopers had been carrying their own guns (“What if scenario,” March 24). According to available statistics, the probable number is 12: the 10 killed before more police arrived, plus Don’s theoretical two citizens who challenged the body-armored killer.

The NRA promotes the idea that “a good guy with a gun” can stop a mass shooting, but there are no examples of that ever happening. There are some cases of armed citizens — or, more often, off-duty police — intervening in stick-ups and bar fights, but mass shootings are a different story.

On the other hand, an analysis by the Los Angeles Times of statistics collected by The Violence Project shows that in America’s 167 mass shootings and 1,202 deaths from 1966 to 2019, five gun laws, in aggregate, might have prevented 146 of them. Those laws include a ban on straw purchases (someone buys a gun for someone else, often a minor); a safe-storage requirement; an assault weapons ban; mandatory background checks; and a red flag law.

Countless studies point to the same conclusion: More guns means more deaths. I understand why gun owners don’t want to believe it, but the arithmetic is clear.

Theodore Costantino

Boulder

Howard Fischer: Gun supporters: It’s their fault

I Live less than a mile from King Soopers, The massacre that happened Monday afternoon, seems to be related to last week’s District Judge decision to overturn the City of Boulder’s gun magazine limit of ten bullets and the registration of assault rifles. The judge, the Colorado State Shooting Association, John Caldera the NRA are all directly responsible for the execution of 10 innocent souls.This District Judge, Andrew Hartman  is bias, and stated that the Boulder ordinance “could create a ripple effect across the state” by encouraging other municipalities to pass their own bans. Yes, so the law according to the judge ,is more important than peoples lives, how do we recall or remove this judge?
Speaking of the NRA they cheered the decision, however I thought their president funneled money from the NRA members to own his personal taste in clothing and other baubles for he and his wife. The NRA members have been duped.

John Caldera, another piece of work was so giddy he could barely control himself and hugged his AR-15.
This craziness has to stop. 20 years ago we endured Columbine then in 2012 Aurora and now 2021, a worthless low life, seemingly paranoid sociopath was able to purchase a gun a massacre 10 people including one brave policeman, who were just going about their day, only to be gunned down .
Somehow this deranged lunatic equated the district judge ruling ,John Caldera and Colorado State Shooting Association victory, with showing Boulder, he can now be free to use his new toy. He was able to purchase a semi automatic pistol with modifications to make it automatic, and a longer barrel for more accuracy.

The blood of 10 people killed Tuesday is on the above perpetrators.

Howard Fischer

Boulder

Sharon Hillman: Open carry: It’s about aggression

Open Carry is not about Freedom.  It’s about Power- political power, whether it be Republicans, Libertarians, Chaos Culture or Russians.

It’s about aggression.

It’s about in-your-face antagonism, bullying, intimidation and dominion.

It compromises our security.

It instills fear and triggers PTSD.

In short, Open Carry is a direct threat to ordinary day-to-day security, peace and tranquility.

It needs to be divorced from the concept of “FREEDOM” and laws must be enacted and enforced making Open Carry illegal with heavy consequence for anyone found toting a firearm in public- especially when attributed to intentions of menace and intimidation.

Open Carry is antithetical to peace.

Open Carry is antithetical to Democracy.

For the sake of this nation, shut Open Carry down now.

Sharon Hillman

Boulder