By CU News Corps (via The Gazette): In 2013, at least 547 people were killed by gunshot wounds in Colorado.
Last year, a 1-year-old toddler was shot and killed by her 22-year-old father after he had an argument with the girl’s mother in Westminster. A 12-year-old boy got his hands on a gun and used it to take his own life during a family vacation. A 67-year-old man killed his 81-year-old wife and shot himself with a rifle in Delta County.
CU News Corps reporters found these details among hundreds of public records kept by county coroners. The records provided valuable context to the total number of gun deaths, and could help shape a better understanding of why so many people die every year from gunshot wounds.
In January 2013, a group of University of Colorado journalism students began collecting records for every gun death in Colorado for the years 2012 and 2013. The idea was to collect and publish more data than what the state makes available to inform the discussion on gun policy in Colorado. During the project, inspired by Homicide Watch D.C., CU News Corps reporters learned the following:
– A nonstandardized process for requesting public coroners’ records makes accessing complete public information about the state’s gun deaths extraordinarily time-consuming.
– Custodians of the information sometimes do not understand their obligations.
– Data provided by county coroners often contain information that is not made available by the state – information that provides context to the hundreds of gun deaths that occur each year.
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