Boulder community members and organizations gather on campus to protest gun violence on Sept. 17 (Sagan Randall/CU Independent).
Students, parents, activists and city officials gathered at the University Memorial Center quad to call attention to gun violence on Sept. 17. The event, hosted by Students Demand Action and Team Enough, aimed to raise awareness and mobilize the University of Colorado Boulder community.
The President of Boulder’s chapter of Students Demand Action, Alexander Cisneros, first addressed the rally participants.
“Every single day, more people die of gun violence,” Cisneros said. “Every single day, more communities are traumatized and re-traumatized.”
Students Demand Action began as a pilot program in 2016, but after the 2018 Parkland shooting that killed 17 people, the organization launched a national initiative. Today, it includes more than 700 groups nationwide, including CU Boulder’s chapter.
Team Enough is a nation-wide, youth-led initiative created by Brady, an anti-gun violence activist organization. Team Enough was launched in 2018, whose founding members were youth gun violence survivors. The organization has established chapters across the nation to advocate for anti-gun violence policies and legislation.
At the event, Cisneros urged students to speak out. He emphasized the importance of creating a platform for young people to take action on issues that have shaped their lives.
“I hope that’s the kind of impact that we can have,” Cisneros said. “Helping get young people engaged, helping them show that yes, you do actually have power in this space where we can actually make change and save lives.”
Co-president of CU’s Team Enough chapter, Anjalie Pasrich and Rhiannon Danborn spoke at the rally.
“Every student deserves to be safe in school, no matter their politics, background or beliefs,” they said. “That means we cannot let partisan divide keep us from building the movement we need.”
Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty also attended in support of the group’s mission.
“No student should ever have to live with this as a possibility, let alone reality. And I remember going to college and the things I had to think about, a mass shooting was not on that list,” Dougherty said. “We cannot accept this reality. I will never accept that this is just something that’s a part of who we are as a people and as a country, and how we continue to fight for change.”
Since 2021, Colorado law has required gun owners to store firearms in a safe or with a lock to prevent easy access. Dougherty nodded to that measure while outlining the DA’s approach to gun violence, which includes prosecution, legislative advocacy and promoting safe storage.
“This fight, this burden, should not fall to the students. So we need parents and community members to join in this effort and make sure we’re doing everything we can to build a better future,” Dougherty said.
Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions states that although there is increased risk with owning a firearm there are ways to help reduce the injury and violence. Such as safe gun storage, firearm purchaser licensing and regulating the public carry of firearms, among others.
Bay Grobe, a CU student who was at the Students Demand Action protest, spoke about his ideas on reform.
“I think all we need is common sense gun reform. I don’t think that we need to take away everyone’s guns, but I think that putting in things like universal background checks, mental health checks, making sure that people have to take gun training courses, is the way to go to limit gun violence,” Grobe said.
Several students and attendees noted how seeing people show up and share their voices fills them with hope.
“Having more people engaged in this effort is how we make change. I’m filled with hopes of events like this, but I want to make sure all the community members are investing in our future,” Dougherty said.
A group of CU Boulder students hold signs at the protest on Sept. 17, (Sagan Randall/CU Independent).
Within the last month, Colorado communities have been grappling with a wave of events tied to gun violence. The most recent occurred on Sept. 10, at Evergreen High School, when a student opened fire inside and outside the building, injuring two classmates before dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
At CU Boulder, students faced both a swatting incident and an unconfirmed bomb threat. Already heightened by false threats on their own campus, the shooting added to students’ anxieties; Evergreen High School is approximately one hour away from CU Boulder’s campus.
Harper Skjerseth, a student at CU and a member of Students Demand Action, was present at the protest on Wednesday, and noted her unease being on campus.
“Honestly, it’s a little scary, especially with all the mass violence that’s been happening in our community, on our campus,” Skjerseth said. “Even if they’re not real, right? The fear is still there, and especially having like personal experiences with gun violence, it’s definitely a scary time in our community, especially to be on college campus.”
For many students, active shooter drills, alarms and lockdowns have become a source of trauma and anxiety. There have been 435 school shootings since Columbine in 1999, and since then more than 398,000 students have experienced gun violence at school, according to The Washington Post.
Even when students are not physically harmed, research shows lasting consequences for their mental health, education and economic futures. Trauma from gun violence can affect young people in different ways, including brain development and stress responses.
Zanna Prospero, a senior at Fairview High School, spoke about her experience at the protest, during an active shooter alarm that locked down the school on Sept. 11. While the alarm ended up being false, the experience was very real.
“We went to an active lockdown. And it was not a drill, it was real. And this came after the day of the Evergreen shooting and the murder of Charlie Kirk, and like so many other gun violence, and that was all in our minds,” Prospero said. “I thought that I was going to die, genuinely, I was in the room, and I was shaking and crying, and everyone was just silent because we were listening for gunshots, and I did not know if my friends were safe or if they were alive.”
DA Dougherty acknowledged Prospero’s experience at Fairview High School.
“That’s a lot of trauma for all the kids there,” he said. “What her future looks like depends on the work we’re doing right now.”
Dougherty stressed the importance for political leaders to handle gun-violence in the United States.
“We need leaders to step up and actually lead on this issue and recognize it’s non-partisan, and fight to call out when gun violence takes place, and then work together to prevent gun violence.” DA Dougherty said.
Contact CU Independent Managing Editor Satori Griffith at satori.griffith@colorado.edu
Contact CU Independent News Editor Avery Clifton at avery.clifton@colorado.edu
