The shocking violence committed against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans in Florida, on June 12 has horrified us all. The attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando has brought together the combined threats of terrorism, gun violence and hate our nation faces today.

Here in Colorado, our state’s painful history of mass murder has forced us to take the lead in finding solutions to gun violence in recent years. In 1999, the community of Littleton and Columbine High School became synonymous with the horror of mass killing with semiautomatic weapons.

The Colorado Legislature finally took action after the 2012 Aurora theater shooting and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings to reduce the threat of gun violence. During the 2013 legislative session we tightened background checks, limited gun magazine capacity and made it harder for dangerous domestic violence offenders and other criminals to have guns.

In 2015 alone, over 7,700 criminals attempting to buy guns in Colorado were stopped by universal background checks – including 22 arrested or convicted of homicide, 17 for kidnapping, and 130 for sexual assault. In addition, 251 fugitives attempting to buy a gun were arrested on site. Meanwhile, over 98 percent of gun purchases went through without a hitch-proof that the new law is catching criminals without harming the rights of law-abiding citizens.

If the gun lobby and the politicians they back had their way, this background check system would be completely dismantled, and those 7,700 criminals would have gotten those guns, and those 251 fugitives would still be at large. This is not a debatable point, this is not a philosophical difference – this is a fact. Our laws kept weapons out of the hands of extremely dangerous people, and anyone who would repeal those laws would be complicit in the crimes committed with those guns.

We also know that if a mass murderer has to reload a semiautomatic weapon in the midst of a shooting spree, lives will be saved, as law enforcement is able to use that pause to take the shooter out. And we know that protecting victims of violence from more violence is the right thing to do.

Ever since the passage of the 2013 landmark gun safety laws, the gun lobby has waged political warfare on the state of Colorado. Our state has endured recall elections against lawmakers who supported gun safety, and every legislative session has witnessed multiple attempts to repeal some or all of the laws to reduce gun violence passed in 2013.

The boycotts and other threats against our economy from the gun lobby never materialized. In fact, right after the passage of those gun safety laws, Colorado had the best and most profitable tourism season in the state’s history, bringing in 64.6 million visitors and raking in $17.3 billion to our state’s economy. Common sense gun safety laws save lives, and have no impact on constitutional rights or tourism or anything except the ability for criminals to get their hands on weapons and for killers to become killing machines.

Terrorism is a threat to America, but so is hatred against LGBT Americans, communities of color, immigrants, Muslims and anyone based solely on their race, religion or the color of their skin. And so is the terrible threat of gun violence that tragically kills dozens of Americans every single day. The lesson of Orlando is that these problems are all related.

As the nation debates the solutions to these difficult and interwoven problems, the state of Colorado can once again serve as a powerful model for change. The 15-hour filibuster Senate Democrats held to force a vote on gun safety seems to have had the effect of finally forcing Congress to take up common sense legislation like closing the terrorist gun loophole and enacting Colorado-style universal background checks. Hopefully, our nation can finally show the courage this state has shown in tackling the hardest questions of our times.