{"id":16482,"date":"2025-09-19T23:39:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T05:39:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rocky-mountain-gun-owners-event-still-scheduled-in-lewis-arriola-after-community-concern\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:58:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:58:35","slug":"rocky-mountain-gun-owners-event-still-scheduled-in-lewis-arriola-after-community-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rocky-mountain-gun-owners-event-still-scheduled-in-lewis-arriola-after-community-concern\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocky Mountain Gun Owners event still scheduled in Lewis-Arriola after community concern"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A sign shows Cortez\u2019s Four Corners Rifle and Pistol Club outdoor, not directly affiliated with the event taking place at Lewis-Arriola Community Center. (Benjamin Rubin\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A pro-Second Amendment group scheduled to appear in Lewis-Arriola next week is set to carry on as planned, even after some Montezuma County residents said advertising for the gathering implied it encouraged violence against leftists. The head of the group said the message was misunderstood.<\/p>\n

A few weeks ago, a flyer appeared around town advertising an event in which the Colorado-based group Rocky Mountain Gun Owners will appear Sept. 23 in Lewis-Arriola for its Four Corners Tour.<\/p>\n

Rocky Mountain Gun Owners advocates for the Second Amendment in Colorado and works to prevent anti-firearm policies, according to its website<\/a>. Several new bills have been passed in the state legislature this year regulating firearms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But it was the flyer\u2019s wording that caught the attention of some residents, with a red banner that appeared at the top.<\/p>\n

\u201cEliminate the radical left. Take back Colorado,\u201d the flyer read.<\/p>\n

Some in the community viewed the event as a call for violence, and expressed their concerns in a letter to the editor published in The Journal<\/em><\/a> on Sept. 10, signed by about 100 people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot stay silent as extremists in our community imply they will kill anyone who disagrees with them,\u201d the letter read. \u201cIf we allow this line to be crossed, what\u2019s next?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Journal<\/em> reached out to Rocky Mountain Gun Owners for comment and to learn if the Sept. 23 event is still taking place as planned.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe event is happening, and I don\u2019t want to hear anyone from that side of the aisle about inciting violence,\u201d said Ian Escalante, executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.<\/p>\n

Escalante said their letter misconstrued his group\u2019s messaging. He called the claim that Rocky Mountain Gun Owners were inciting violence \u201cslanderous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Escalante said he especially did not like hearing these claims from people on the liberal side of the political spectrum after the killing of Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n

Kirk, a popular right-wing political activist known for his lively debates, was shot Sept. 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University.<\/p>\n

The assassination has fueled polarization<\/a> among those who honor Kirk\u2019s legacy as an American conservative and others who say his message was hateful.<\/p>\n

Tension has reached Cortez in other forms. This week, the Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 School District condemned a teacher\u2019s comments regarding Kirk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The polarization has influenced tension about the pro-Second Amendment event in Lewis-Arriola.<\/p>\n

Escalante, executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, said his group had changed their wording from \u201celiminate\u201d the radical left to \u201cdefeat,\u201d instead. Updated flyers advertising the event online<\/a> confirm this change.<\/p>\n

According to Escalante, the choice to change the wording was \u201cnot because they intimated us or pushed us into changing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An
An earlier, digital copy of the flyer advertising the event in Lewis-Arriola, hosted by Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A
A newer, updated, digital copy of the flyer advertising the event in Lewis-Arriola, hosted by Rocky Mountain Gun Owners. Note the change from the previous version, from \u201cEliminate the radical left\u201d to \u201cDefeat the radical left.\u201d<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cSounds like to me that he reread the text and he realized how it sounded and took a step back,\u201d said Karen Sheek, one of the letter to the editor\u2019s cosigners. \u201cI\u2019m pleased that he chose to make some changes, but this \u2018us against them\u2019 business is not productive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheek, chair of the Montezuma County League of Women Voters, said she was speaking with The Journal<\/em> as a private citizen. She also is a former Cortez mayor. Sheek said that she was not behind the letter\u2019s distribution.<\/p>\n

The Lewis-Arriola Community Center did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Those who wish to attend the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners Group can RSVP online for the gathering<\/a>. The event, as part of a larger Four Corners tour, will take place at the Lewis-Arriola Community Center on Tuesday, Sept. 23 at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Executive director says flyer was reworded from \u2018eliminate\u2019 to \u2018defeat\u2019 \u2018the radical left\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16482"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20227,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16482\/revisions\/20227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16482"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}