Club Q Shooting shows that lawmakers need to be focused on gun laws

• Colorado Gov. Jared Polis suggested that legislators should look at a range of measures to stop mass shootings.
• Polis stated that the Club Q shooter suspected should have activated Colorado’s red flag laws.
• A 22-year-old gunman threatened his mother with a homemade explosive, prompting police to respond.

Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis suggested that the government leaders should “walk and chew gum at once” regarding gun policies to avoid more mass shootings. 

“If you are serious about reducing gun violence and mass violence, what you really need is to seek out the best ideas of all those who work. Mental health is a key issue. It’s also about gun policy. It’s anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, of course. It’s about all of these things,” Polis said Sunday on “Meet the Press”, NBC News. 

As a society and as leaders in politics, we need to be able to walk and chew gum simultaneously. Polis stated that it was important to consider all facts and evidence before making decisions to create a safer nation. 

Five people were killed in Colorado Springs’ Club Q shooting by a suspected gunman aged 22 who had threatened his mother in 2021 with a homemade bomb. Officers of the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office refused to utilize the red flag law that allows law enforcement or family members to ask a judge to temporarily seize a person’s firearms if they are a serious risk to themselves or others, Insider previously reported. 

—Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 27, 2022

Polis stated that this “looks like it would have been a great instance for Colorado’s Red Flag Law,” adding that officials will “take a hard-look at why Red Flag Law was not used in this particular case.”

Polis stated, “We need make that easier and more readily available when somebody is an immediate threat. This troubled man’s past showed that he could have been a threat. This could have led to our Red Flag Law to take him out of custody for his weapons, while he is in a mental health crisis. These tools are data-driven. They work. They are effective in reducing suicide. They can also reduce the chance of such horrific events from time to time.