Central Presbyterian Hosts Showing of New CFCU Video on Preventing Firearm Suicides
Next Public Health Strategies Meeting Will Explore How to Make Use of the New ERPO Guide for Clergy and Faith Leaders
Lockdown Drills for Kids....What Do MOMS Think?
Start Planning for the 2026 National Victims of Gun Violence Vigil
All the Empty Rooms Community Film Screening in Boulder
First Congregational Church, Boulder Hosts Screen of Louder Than Guns
Words That Disarm: How the Gun Industry Really Works
October Calendar
CFCU Interviews Eileen McCarron
Eileen McCarron is a prominent gun violence prevention advocate, co-founder, and president of Legislative Action of Colorado Ceasefire, who announced her retirement after more than 25 years of advocacy.
The Colorado Permit-to-Purchase Coalition, including CFCU and other national and local gun violence prevention groups, has launched a new awareness campaign about the effectiveness of Permit-to-Purchase laws. Such laws, in effect in 11 other states, have been proven to reduce gun homicides, gun suicides, mass shootings, and shootings of and by police. These laws require prospective firearm purchasers to obtain a permit to purchase the firearm—like getting a driver’s license —ensuring all gun owners are well trained in firearm safety practices.
You’ll be hearing more about P2P in the coming months. To learn more about it and get involved, please see the COP2P website.
CFCU Position on Colorado Amendment 83: Vote NO
With Colorado ballots being mailed out in only a few days, we’d like to urge you to vote NO on ballot initiative Amendment 83. This amendment to Colorado’s constitution would add a constitutional “right” to hunt, fish and trap into our state’s Constitution. Hunting and fishing are already legal in Colorado and carefully regulated under existing state and federal laws.
Amendment 83 would impose a much-heightened judicial review requirement on any gun violence prevention or gun safety laws that could possibly be argued to impact hunting rights. While state statutes can be amended or revised fairly easily in response to changing conditions or societal developments, a constitutional amendment would be very difficult to repeal. As a result, it would make it harder for Colorado voters and policymakers to adopt new wildlife rules, including Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission, and the Colorado General Assembly.
Colorado House Bill 25‑1250, Colorado’s Gun Violence Prevention for Parents & Guardians of K–12 Students, requires school districts to:
Post secure firearm storage information on their websites, and
Share it with families in written or electronic form at the start of each school year.
CFCU is a member of the Colorado Coalition Against Gun Violence. Coalition members are currently conducting a survey to see how many school districts meet these requirements in order to strengthen participation and identify where additional outreach is needed. If you’re a parent or guardian of a K–12 student in Colorado, please take 3–4 minutes to complete this form, and let us know whether your school has sent secure storage information to families.
Your responses, even partial ones, help us identify which districts are implementing the law and where additional outreach is needed for the 2026–2027 school year.
Central Presbyterian Hosts Showing of
New CFCU Video on Preventing Firearm Suicides
By Alana Smart, B'nai Havurah
Over 20 members of Central Presbyterian in Denver viewed CFCU’s new video: Preventing Firearm Suicides 101 following services on Sunday, Sept. 27.
While they rarely make the headlines, suicides are the leading type of firearm death taking 731 lives in 2025. They have increased steadily and now represent over 70% of all firearm deaths in Colorado. With the help of Cheryl Fleetwood (Central Pres/CFCU Membership Chair) and Carol Farnsworth, (Central Pres/ CFCU Rep), Molly Brown (Central Pres/ Safe Haven Coordinator), and Alana Smart (B’nai Havurah/Public Health Strategies Chair) facilitated the training which emphasizes that suicides can be prevented.
While professionals are an important part of the solution, there are things that anyone can do to help save lives. Major teaching points include that: saying the “s” word won’t cause it to happen and providing personal support during a time of crisis can be lifesaving. Produced by CFCU’s Public Health strategies Action Team, this new video shows what caring people can do to help prevent firearm suicides. It features Colorado suicide prevention professionals talking about:
How to recognize when someone is struggling with suicidal thoughts and what you can do to help
Secure storage strategies to safeguard individuals and homes
And, as a last resort, how to seek additional help through an ERPO (Extreme Risk Protection Order)
Next Public Health Strategies Meeting Will Explore
How to Make Best Use of the
New ERPO Guide for Clergy and Faith Leaders
By Alana Smart, B'nai Havurah
Along with CFCU and Public Health Strategies (PHS) project updates, the PHS Action Team will be exploring how to use the new ERPO Guide for Clergy and Faith Leaders at its ZOOM meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 7 from 10:00 am - 11:30
Members of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, Faith Leaders for Ending Gun Violence, and Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence have created a new resource "Extreme Risk Protection Orders: A Clergy Resource Guide". The guide will help clergy members navigate the ERPO process and offer support to their community in times of crisis. CFCU provided preliminary input for the development of this guide based on feedback from our clergy following a 2019 ERPO presentation.
This meeting will also include reports on the:
Roll-out of new Pro Se Legal Clinic for ERPO petitioners by the Colorado Lawyers Committee
2025 ERPO Data and Findings by FIPI (Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative, School of Medicine, Anschutz)
Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence, a national US faith-based, interdenominational gun controladvocacy organization, has been working together with Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions to create an ERPO Guide for clergy and faith leaders.
Active shooter drills are implemented in over 95% of K-12 schools in the United States. How are these drills affecting students who experience them? There is much discussion among GVP groups as to their effect on the mental well-being of our children. Everytown has done the research, but here is an example of conversation among parents of these children from a recent MOMS group..
The September quarterly meeting of MOMS Talk, hosted by the Columbine area Moms Demand Action group had a discussion of lockdown drills in schools. Some of the discussion points included:
How lockdowns are announced (or not announced!) is left up to the principal. When a lockdown is announced, many parents keep kids home from school--is that good or bad?
Parents and schools using the same language helps kids understand what's happening and lend credence to what's being said. Preparing children with strategies to calm their anxiety and learning how to answer questions with clarity and age-appropriate honesty, helps immensely.
Parents and grandparents can ask their children and grandchildren what they've been told about lockdown drills and form questions for the administrators and teachers about the drills. It's all about building muscle memory to help kids stay safe in an emergency.
All kids react differently to drills and there are more than one type of drill (lock down, bad weather, etc.)
One mom said her son likes lockdown drills the best because his teacher gives each student a sucker and lets them keep it as long as they are quiet!
Start Planning for the 2026 National Vigil for all Victims of Gun Violence
by Cheryl Fleetwood, Central Presbyterian
Every December CFCU Member Congregations join with others around the country to lament the devastating trauma wrought by the gun violence epidemic. We remember the lives taken, the loved ones left grieving and the ripple
effect of this violence in our communities by collectively marking the Annual National Vigil for All Victims of Gun Violence. This 14th annual remembrance which originated in the aftermath of the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School is sponsored by the Newtown Action Alliance Foundation.
There will be a service at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, December 9, 2026, and CFCU will be organizing events in Colorado over the weekend of December 12-13, 2026. CFCU Reps from the Central, South, West and Boulder County Regions are beginning to make plans to offer multiple opportunities for us to come together and remember and honor both victims and survivors of gun violence. Please make a note on your calendar and stay tuned for more information about these upcoming events.
A Film for Gun Owners and Non-Gun Owners Alike
Presented by the Gun Violence Prevention Ministry
First Congregational Church, Boulder | (303) 442-1787 Contact: Carol Young
First Congregational Church, Boulder
Hosts Screening of Louder Than Guns
November 9, 2026 - 7:00 p.m. Movie Screening
Panel Discussion with David Greene, NPR Host, and Doug Pray, Director
Dairy Arts Center | Tickets $11.50, On sale at www.dairycenter.org
Words That Disarm
How the Gun Industry Really Works
by Gene Drumm, First Universalist Church of Denver
March For Our Lives (MFOL) started as a student-led organization following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida that claimed 17 lives. Since those 8 years, MFOL has carried out very effective organizing, demonstration planning, and legislative efforts.
Many of us involved in the movement to combat gun violence, have thought of the National Rifle Association (NRA) as the embodiment of the pro-gun movement in America. The actual workings of the gun industry, which provides the money behind the NRA and related organizations, however, are much more involved and insidious than just NRA rallies and lobbying activities.
MFOL has put together an interactive schematic showing how the gun industry works, including details about protective legislation, associated groups, lobbying, and other components that can help us see how the profits of the 6 companies: Smith & Wesson, Sturm-Ruger, Sig Sauer, Glock, Daniel Defense, and RemArms (Remington) work to keep the gun industry prosperous, protected and defended. All while it masks its real purpose--maximizing profits--as a defense of the 2nd Amendment.
Knowledge is power and knowing how the machine works, and its implicit weaknesses, can help us be much more informed about how to deal with proponents, who may be ignorant of the hidden players of this prime factor in the American public health emergency resulting from gun violence.
Wednesday, October 7: 10 - 11:30 AM: Public Health StrategiesMeeting on Zoom. Please contact Alana Smart (publichealthstrategies@cfcu-co.org) for more information.
Friday, October 16: 6 - 7:30 pm: All the Empty Rooms, a community film screening, at Community United Church of Christ (2650 Table Mesa Drive). There will also be a mini-advocacy training.
Sunday, October 18: 2 - 5: CFCU Strategic Planning Meeting
Monday, October 19: 1 - 3:00 pm on Zoom: Steering Committee Meeting on Zoom. Please contact Alana Smart (publichealthstrategies@cfcu-co.org) for more information.
Thursday, October 22: 9 - 10 am: Communications Meeting on Zoom. Please contact Daryl Foelske (dfoelske@gmail.com)
Monday, November 9: 7 PM: Louder Than Guns sponsored by First Congregational Church at the Dairy Arts Center ( 2590 Walnut St., Boulder)
CFCU is a project of Colorado Nonprofit Development Center. Donations, grants and dues payments are tax deductible.
