Celebrating 11 Years of Faith-Fueled Action to End Gun Violence!
October 2025 Digest
In this edition of the Digest:
A Prayer for the Members of the Church of the Latter-day Saints
Dynamic and Powerful Session in the South Region!
Sign up for the West Regional Meeting
Donate to the Colorado Healing Fund to Support Evergreen High School Victims
Public Health Strategies hosts Ms. Catie Fowler
FIPI Holds Webinar on Implementing Safe Storage and ERPO
Boulder County News
Tom Mauser Presents "Having a Conversation with Gun Advocates"
News from the Advocacy Team
Help Support Donna's Law
Words That Disarm
CFCU October Calendar
A Prayer for Members of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Whole Community of Grand Blanc, Michigan
O Lord,
there is no comfort for unspeakable grief.
There are no words in the face of another shooting and mass murder.
May the grief you feel with your people bring them solace.
Let your love surround all whose loved ones have been taken,
And those who have died.
May you be a home to your community of Saints,
Whose church home has been burned down.
May every heart broken, may every heart despairing,
may every outraged angry heart find a refuge in your Sacred Heart.
May every person on earth use this traumatic moment
To say "No more...no more...no more,"
with their mouths and their hands and their feet.
May your Spirit move us to do what it takes to make this world a place of safety and peace.
Amen.
Rita Niblack
Most Precious Blood Catholic Church, CFCU
2025 Regional Strategic Planning Meetings
Dynamic and Powerful Session in the South Region!
Photos from the South Regional Meeting at Calvary Baptist Church,September 14.
On Sunday, September 14 representatives from CFCU member congregations, including two of our founding faith communities (First Universalist and First Plymouth), gathered to add their voices to the cumulative insight we are hearing from folks in every region. CFCU veteran volunteers as well as a few newcomers to our work also spent quality time sharing and processing our individual and collective feelings about the gun violence epidemic.
Once again Calvary Baptist stepped up in spades to support CFCU by hosting the meeting. We were also both grounded and inspired by their dynamic clergy duo - Rev. Anne Scalfaro and Rev. Alice Horner-Nelson - who led us through an opening and closing candle-lighting ritual.
With the South Regional Meeting in the books, we will now build on the bonds forged and the hope shared to strengthen our movement moving forward!
The West Region will bring us home and round out our 2025 series of Regional Meetings!
On the heels of the Evergreen high school shooting, CFCU Member Congregations west of Denver are geographically closest to this community reeling from the trauma of gun violence. At the upcoming West Regional Meeting we’ll discuss how CFCU can support the Evergreen community as they lament, grieve and move toward healing.
Please plan to join us on Sunday, October 26, 3-5pm at Lakewood United Church of Christ, 100 Carr Street, Lakewood
If you are a Friend of CFCU or a member of one of these congregations please click below to register now.
Colorado Gives Foundation has activated its Colorado Healing Fund to support the victims and needs of the Evergreen community. “The Colorado Healing Fund provides a safe way for people to donate in times of mass tragedy, ensuring that the funds go to the families of the deceased, the survivors, and the greater impacted community.”
Project coordinator with the CO Attorney General’s Office
Ms. Fowler will join the October 1 Meeting of the Public Health Strategies Team Meeting at 11. She will speak about the rollout of new ERPO Training Curriculum for Educators. If you are interested in attending and not already on the PHS team, please contact Alana Smart (publichealthstrategies@cfcu-co.org) to receive the Zoom link.
Catie Fowler is the Project Coordinator at the Office of the Attorney General, tasked with overseeing federally funded grant projects to provide Extreme Risk Protection Order training to educators and law enforcement. Catie’s background is in human rights and conflict studies, including work on human trafficking, human security, and gender in armed conflict. She is passionate about bringing survivor voice and trauma-informed approaches to the forefront of violence prevention and feels grateful to be able to work on projects that impact her home state of Colorado
The Boulder Rotary Club in partnership with Boulder Community Health is organizing a gun safe and cable gun lock giveaway event on Saturday October 18th, 9:00 – 11:00 AM at the Boulder Community Health Foothills Hospital Campus. For more details, please see the flyer below.
CFCU Partners with Colorado Ceasefire
to Showcase GVP Programs
Tom Mauser is the father of Daniel Mauser, one of the students killed at Columbine High School. Tom became a gun violence prevention activist following that tragedy. For 22 years he has served as a board member of Colorado Ceasefire.
Having a Conversation
Wednesday, October 22
12 - 1 on Zoom
How do we have conversations with people about firearms, who might hold very different views from us? This presentation provides some rational, but simple, responses to common gun rights arguments that focus on balanced approaches and uphold individual rights while prioritizing public safety.
Would you like to sponsor a Guns to Gardens event at your congregation? If so sign up for the next Action Circle Training, to learn what you will need to know. The training is on Zoom, once a week for six weeks. You can attend a morning or evening cohort. Sessions begin on October 16 and run through November 20.
Shifting the Cost of Gun Violence to the Gun Industry in Illinois
Dr. Anthony Douglas, a medical resident on track to become a trauma and acute care surgeon in Chicago, has developed an idea designed to shift how the harm caused by guns is paid for, from victims’ families, hospitals, Medicaid, and taxpayers to the gun industry. Backed by a growing coalition of Illinois state lawmakers and advocates, Douglas is pushing a bill called the Responsibility in Firearm Legislation Act, or RIFL Act. It would require gun manufacturers that want access to Illinois’ market to obtain a state license [Colorado passed a law in 2024, HB24-1353, requiring firearm dealers to have a state firearms dealer permit] and pay into a compensation fund for gun violence that would shift some of the burden from victims and taxpayers back onto the industry that profits from the product. A gun company’s annual contribution would scale with how often its firearms are recovered in fatal incidents, shootings, and suicides in Illinois. The more frequently a company’s guns are found to create public costs, the more it would pay. Some of the money in the fund might be used to stabilize funding for community violence prevention programs that are facing federal funding cuts and grant cancellations under the current administration. Sponsors say they expect lawmakers to take up the bill when the Illinois General Assembly returns for the second year of its biennial session in spring 2026. Read more by clicking the link below.
Articles submitted by Stephanie Greenberg, Congregation Bonai Shalom.
Largest Ever Verdict Dealt Against Gun Dealer
On August 27th, the trial against Maryland’s largest ghost gun dealer concluded in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, with a jury verdict in favor of plaintiffs for $62 million. This is the largest ever verdict a gun dealer defendant has been dealt in American history.
Concern over federal funding cuts to injury and violence research and prevention efforts
In an interview in The Trace, Professor David Hemenway, professor of health policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, expressed concern over the current administration’s proposed elimination of funding for the CDC’s research to help reduce firearm injuries. CDC-funded scholars have been examining the effectiveness of hospital-based violence intervention programs and anonymous school reporting systems, which allow students to report problematic behavior by their peers. Their research has shown that such reporting systems have helped prevent planned school shootings, as well as many youth suicides. The proposed federal budget also eliminates funding for community violence prevention, injury control research centers, and youth violence prevention centers. Researchers have found that these programs have often led to significant reductions in youth assaults and other illegal behavior. Read the whole interview below.
Donna's Law for Colorado is a voluntary, confidential and fully reversible self-exclusion tool that individuals can utilize to restrict themselves from a firearm purchase. In other words, it is legislation that allows individuals to voluntarily add themselves to a do-not-sell list to prevent a firearm purchase before a time of crisis or significant change in their lives.
Donna's Law was signed into law on June 2, 2025. A grassroots movement is now raising funds to implement the online portal for people to enroll in the do-not-sell list maintained by the Department of Public Safety.
December 9 is the day thousands of Coloradans come together to support their choice of non-profit organizations, including CFCU, but your gift is welcome anytime at ColoradoGives.org. All gifts beginning November 1 count toward the total raised this year. The projects highlighted in this newsletter are just a sample of the many ways we put every dollar you give to good use in our aim to end gun violence.
Words that Disarm:
Recovering from Un-Natural Disasters
by Laurie Kraus, David Hoylan, and Bruce Wismer
With continued trauma because of mass shootings, violence and conflict, this book is a much-needed help for spiritual leaders who are trying to negotiate a path for their congregations. Written by Presbyterian pastors and elders who have been certified in compassion fatigue and trauma ministry, the book is a guide through the opening moments of a violent event to the weeks, months and years of ministry in the aftermath. There is a section on the press, on volunteers, on resilience, as well as moving through transitions as the community begins to heal. Disillusionment, care for the caregivers and the importance of storytelling are some of the often ignored aspect of a disaster that are discussed in this book. There are worship services for all parts of the journey through the first moments to the years of recovery. This book is a necessary read in advance of a disaster, and an important resource to have at hand when an "un-natural" emergency happens.
If you have read a compelling book, article, or seen a film that highlights the issue of gun violence prevention, and would like to share a review, please submit your suggestion to communications@cfcu-co.org
CFCU is a project of Colorado Nonprofit Development Center. Donations, grants and dues payments are tax deductible.
Wednesday, October 1: 10 -11:30 am. Public Health Strategies Meetingon Zoom. For more information please contact Alana Smart (publichealthstrategies@cfcu-co.org)
Tuesday, October 21: 3 - 5: Joint Executive and Steering Committee Meeting on Zoom. For more information please contact Alana Smart (publichealthstrategies@cfcu-co.org)
Thursday, October 23: 9 - 10 am: Communications Team Meeting on Zoom.For more information please contact Daryl Foelske (dfoelske@gmail.com )
Sunday, October 26: 3 - 5.West Regional Meeting. Lakewood United Church of Christ, 100 Carr Street, Lakewood.
Wednesday October 29th, 2:00 PM on Zoom.Advocacy Team Meeting. For more information, contact Stephanie at (advocacy@cfcu-co.org).
Wednesday, November 19: 10:00 - 11:30 AM:Public Health Strategies Meeting on Zoom. For more information please contact Alana Smart (publichealthstrategies@cfcu-co.org)
Sunday, January 25: 2- 5 pm:CFCU Leadership Retreat and Strategic Planning Meeting
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Colorado Faith Communities United to End Gun Violence, P.O. Box 18770, Denver, Colorado 80218, USA