I’ll never forget the first time I had a Gen Z co-worker tell me that they went to school every day assuming that, eventually, their school would succumb to a mass shooting. I’ll never forget the casual, matter-of-fact way he spoke about it—he truly believed in the marrow of his bones that at some point during his educational career, he would have to duck and cover.
Considering there were over 630 mass shootings across the US in 2023, it’s completely understandable where his fear came from. When you combine that large a number of mass shootings with the fact that 2024 marks the 25th anniversary of the Columbine school massacre, something was bound to be done by our lawmakers.
This year has seen a plethora of new legislative attempts at curbing gun violence. From new gun tracking laws to laws focusing on the safe storage of weapons in a vehicle, each new piece of legislation illustrates a desire to stop senseless mass shootings. However, there is one MAJOR element missing from these attempts at stopping the carnage. Something so massive that it has been a key factor in almost every shooting since the Columbine tragedy of 1999 …
The need for the killer to broadcast their horrific plans online somewhere.
A full year before the Columbine shooting, Randy and Judy Brown (parents of friend/survivor Brooks Brown) filed a report with the sheriff’s office that Eric Harris had written on the internet that he’d like to kill people. When you combine this fact with recent research released from Marymount University that shows a direct correlation between mass shooters and them broadcasting their intentions on social media, it seems like a no-brainer that online platforms need serious oversight.
“But wait,” you must be thinking, “this means that my online/social media activities would have to be heavily monitored. I don’t know if I like that.” Well, it seems that whether or not you have reservations when it comes to this level of monitoring, the lawmakers of Colorado appear to be just fine with keeping a close eye on their constituents.
Though I’m always opposed to the government watching my every move, I’ve also come to the realization (via cancel culture) that literally anything you do online will never die. ANY comment you make, no matter how buried it might be, will always be found by some online sleuth. It seems that in 2024, the state of Colorado has decided to become a very giant sleuth. Yet, instead of focusing on stopping potential mass shooters, they’ve decided to go after the REAL criminals: those who promote psychedelics on social media.
Though it ultimately failed, over 30 state Senators voted in favor of the 2024 bill SB24-158. This legislation could have forced social media platforms to ban users from talking positively online about certain controlled substances, such as state-legal psychedelics, and even some prescription drugs that are already advertised every five minutes everywhere.
Your social media posts would have been held by the state for a year and would have to be regularly turned over for infractions. Basically, if you were to go on X and talk about how psychedelic therapy was helping you with your PTSD that came about as a result of being a veteran, you could receive a ban. The same thing goes if you were to write on your Facebook account about how Lyrica had been helping to improve your life and it might help others.
Though we can argue about the moral ramifications of Big Brother watching your every move, I choose to look past that and focus on the realities of the situation. Since these lawmakers are fine with mining your social media accounts, and gun control has clearly been a mega issue this election cycle, why not put the research from Marymount to good use and monitor the activities of people who are advertising some kind of upcoming violence?
Using this thought process, I researched who the primary and co-sponsors were of SB24-158 and cross-referenced that with those who had also voted on some form of gun legislation. I was ultimately left with a list of 12, each of whom I reached out to for comment.
In the emails I sent, I explained what the focus of the article was and asked them this question:
“In 2022, Doctor of Science in Cybersecurity from Marymount University, Nnaemeka Ekwunife, published a research paper on how social media postings can predict mass shootings before they occur. He analyzed 500 Twitter postings shortly before and after five mass shootings in recent US history and found that as much as 66% of these tweets pointed to the incident occurring. Recently, you were a sponsor of SB24-158—which would allow for the monitoring and record-keeping of the social media activities of Colorado citizens. Also, you have voted on gun legislation that aims to curb gun violence.
Since you support social media monitoring and tougher gun laws to curb mass violence, would you be willing to put forth legislation that would monitor the social media activity of Colorado citizens to help stop mass shootings, since it’s thus far shown a 2 out of 3 success rate?” I also wanted to know if not, then why?
In all instances, I was either ignored or was outright declined a comment.
It seems that in the 25 years since Columbine, Colorado lawmakers have learned nothing. From that shooting until the modern day, there is clear evidence that these murderers crave attention and will telegraph their plans. And if we are going to monitor the social media activities of people regardless, maybe something good can come from it if we laser-focus the search towards violence instead of magic mushrooms.
Since this is an election year, and I’m sure this subject pisses you off as much as it does me, I’ve provided links below to the contact information of every state Senator I reached out to and asked those questions.
Because I am only one journalist, at most I’ll impact their political chances by a grand total of one. However, if everyone who reads this also wants to know why their leaders are so gung-ho on playing Big Brother—or if you want to know why they won’t focus on the trigger-happy postings—then you have the proper links to reach out.
Again, with this being an election year, some of these politicians just might listen.
Sen. Faith Winter (District 25)
Sen. Chris Kolker (District 16)
Sen. Tom Sullivan (District 27)
Sen. Julie Gonzales (District 34)
Sen. Joann Ginal (District 14)
Sen. James Coleman (District 33)
Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet (District 21)
Sen. Janice Marchman (District 15)
Sen. Rhonda Fields (District 28)
Sen. Jeff Bridges (District 26)
Sen. Chris Hansen (District 31)
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