AURORA | Fresh off a White House roundtable discussion about gun violence and prevention, State Senator-elect Rhonda Fields said Friday she will not be introducing any bills in the upcoming Colorado legislative session that directly address gun control.
“My effort is going to be working upstream to prevent young kids from entering into the criminal justice system, making sure we have access to quality early childhood education, we have quality schools,”said Fields, a Democrat moving to the state Senate in January after serving three terms in the state House. “My effort is going to be up front, before someone does something really desperate or violent with a gun.”
“Fields beat out candidates Sebastian Chunn, a Republican, and Libertarian Michele Poague for the state Senate District 29 seat in November.
Fields was instrumental to two controversial gun measures becoming law in 2013, limiting the size of ammunition magazines and expanding required background checks for gun purchases in Colorado. For the 2017 legislative session, Fields is opting for the “upstream” approach with bills that address issues that can affect the prominence of gun violence in communities.
Fields said that at the White House Roundtable this week, President Barack Obama praised the work that has been done at the state-level to curb gun violence — a topic she hopes will continue to be addressed.
“The conversation is what it has never been before, in reference to talking about prevention and those types of things,” Fields said. “We have made progress, it may not seem like it, but we have.”