With support for gun control lacking, Rep. Neguse aims to blunt mass shooting impacts in other ways

U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse will announce on Tuesday a three-pronged approach to preventing, blunting and recovering from mass shooting events, with the unveiling of a trio of bills he will introduce in Congress just weeks after the first anniversary of the Boulder King Soopers shooting that claimed 10 lives.

Specifically, the bills will expand worker safety, provide preventative security measures to workplaces and increase mental health and trauma support in the wake of mass shootings.

The hope with two of the bills at least, Neguse told The Denver Post, is to strengthen security measures and training protocols to reduce the threat of gun violence at schools, grocery stores, movie theaters and other community gathering places.

“These bills are commonsense security measures that we could take today that ultimately could very well save lives,” the congressman said in a phone interview Monday.

Neguse, who was a freshman at a high school in Highlands Ranch when two students at Columbine High School massacred their classmates and a teacher in April 1999, will officially announce the bills in Boulder on Tuesday morning.

Neguse acknowledged that the most effective approach to battling gun violence is reducing access to firearms by those who shouldn’t possess them, but gun control proposals have faced an uphill climb in recent years amid a sharply divided Congress.

In November, the Lafayette Democrat introduced legislation in the House that would prohibit people convicted of violent misdemeanors from purchasing a firearm for five years. The measure has yet to pass the evenly split Senate.

Last week, he sent a letter to President Biden reiterating his call for the establishment of a White House Office of Gun Violence to comprehensively tackle the issue.

“Gun violence prevention legislation has to be the primary goal,” Neguse said. “But if there are commonsense steps that we can take today to better protect our communities then we ought to provide resources for these cities and counties and these establishments that would like to take these steps.”

The first bill in the trio is the Safe Workplaces Act, which will direct the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health to conduct a study on threats of violence in the workplace. The study would be used to guide the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in creating a rule on best practices to protect employees from threats of violence.

The STOP Violence Act would provide federal dollars to put in place security measures at potential trouble spots. The bill expands the Department of Justice’s anti-terrorism program to include the location of active shooter events.

“It could be hiring and training security guards, it could be shatterproof glass and other physical and structural improvements,” Neguse said. “It’s establishing partnerships with law enforcement to improve response times.”

Lastly, the Help for Healing Communities Act will help with recovery after a traumatic event, with community engagement programs, as well as behavioral health services, getting funding. Neguse pointed to the #BoulderStrong Resource Center that arose in the wake of the Table Mesa King Soopers shooting last year as a model for providing support and resources to families and neighbors impacted by gun violence.

“We ought to expand funding so that centers like these can ultimately be deployed in other communities when we tragically see an act of gun violence or a mass shooting,” he said.