‘Specific location’: Colorado Springs gay bar shooting comes as anti-LGBTQ rhetoric rises

Washington: It’s an all-too familiar scene in the US. A gunman enters a room and indiscriminately opens fire on an unsuspecting crowd. Lives are lost, communities are shattered, and a deeply divided nation once again asks: why?

The answer is never simple, but this weekend’s rampage at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs immediately renewed fears about the potential connection between America’s weak gun laws and the homophobic discourse that has permeated its political landscape.

Bouquets of flowers sit on a corner near the site of a mass shooting at a gay bar in Colorado Springs, Colorado.Credit:AP

The incident took place minutes before midnight on Saturday, when 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich walked into Club Q and embarked on a bloody rampage that killed five people and injured at least 17 more.

While formal charges are yet to be filed, Aldrich is now facing multiple counts of first degree murder and as well as the lesser charge of committing a “bias-motivated” crime causing bodily injury.

District Attorney Michael Allen said that the investigation was still ongoing, but “the fact that these victims were in a specific location that is predominantly frequented by members of the LGBTQ community” could be used as evidence towards a possible hate crime.

“It is important to let the community know that we do not tolerate bias-motivated crimes, and that we support communities that have been maligned, harassed and intimidated and abused,” he said at a press conference this afternoon.

Saturday’s attack was the 601st mass shooting to take place this year, according to tracking data by the Gun Violence Archive, renewing calls by President Joe Biden for a full ban on assault weapons.

But Americans are also living in a dangerous climate of polarisation, extremism and anti-gay and anti-trans rhetoric. Indeed, FBI data shows that hate crimes in the US have reached record levels – and that one in five is now motivated by attitudes towards the LGBTQ community.

Time and time again, safe spaces of acceptance and celebration are turned into places of terror and violence.

We saw it six years ago in Orlando, when 49 people died at the Pulse Nightclub shooting in what remains the deadliest attack against the LGBTQ community in US history.

People light candles as members and supporters of the LGBT community gather for a vigil following a fatal 2016 shooting at a Pulse Orlando nightclub in Orlando, Sunday.Credit:AP

We saw hints of it again during Pride March in June this year, when men linked to the white supremacy group Patriot Front were arrested ahead of an event in Idaho.

We have also seen it in the recent spate of threats against children’s hospitals providing gender-affirming care, or in the uptick of attacks against the trans community. Federal figures show at least 32 transgender people have been fatally shot or violently killed by other means this year alone – a number that is likely to be vastly under-reported.

Human rights advocates and LGBTQ groups blame the surge in homophobic and transphobic rhetoric for the troubling trend.

Donald Trump announces he is running for US president.Credit:AP

You would be hard-pressed, for example, to watch a Donald Trump rally where the former president doesn’t pledge to “keep men out of women’s sports” in reference to transgender athletes; or to stop “the indoctrination of children in our schools”, a reference to the way diversity in the taught in the classroom.

In Colorado, Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who was narrowly re-elected last week, has also been vocal against LGBTQ issues, tweeting sentiments such as “Take your children to CHURCH, not drag bars”.

Last year, she also used a speech from the floor of the US House of Representatives to warn of the many “young girls across America who will have to look behind their backs as they change in their school locker rooms just to make sure there isn’t a confused man trying to catch a peek.”

What’s more, figures from the Human Rights Campaign also show that state politicians across the US have introduced 344 anti-LGBTQ bills this session – and 25 of them passed.

These range from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ so-called “Don’t Say Gay” laws banning classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through to the third grade; to an Alabama bill that criminalises gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, making it an offence punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

But while anti-LGBTQ sentiment is on the rise, the unfettered access to guns in America makes for an even deadlier combination.

About 18 months before the Colorado Springs shooting, Aldrich allegedly threatened his mother with a homemade bomb, forcing neighbours to evacuate while the bomb squad and crisis negotiators talked him into surrendering.

Despite this, there are no records to suggest that any charges or that police or relatives tried to trigger Colorado’s “red flag” laws, which would have allowed authorities to seize his weapons.

It is not entirely clear if this could have prevented Saturday’s attack as gun seizures can be in effect for as little as 14 days, and police have not yet said when or how Aldrich may have acquired the guns used at the club.

However, gun control advocates believe it could have at least raised his profile with law enforcement. Tragically, the Club Q victims who were killed this weekend – Daniel Aston, Derrick Rump, Kelly Loving, Raymond Green Vance and Ashley Paugh – will never know.

As Biden said in the wake of the attack: “When will we decide we’ve had enough?”

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