A hearing on gun legislation elicited accusations of racism when a representative of a pro-gun organization suggested the inclusion of Black male children skews the data on deaths from firearms. 

Kevin Lorusso, who was testifying on behalf of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners in a hearing Monday, sought to make the point that removing Black males from statistics on gun deaths among children would yield a “true” picture of the situation.

“If you remove Black males in that age group from that group, it is not true,” he said. “That is a symptom of a different issue. The issue that is causing young Black males to be killed in their homes, on their streets, is a very different issue.”

Lorusso offered the suggestion during an exchange with Rep. Kyle Brown, D-Louisville, who had noted a New England Journal of Medicine article, which cited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and reported that firearms have become the leading cause of death for children.

At issue was House Bill 1044, known as the Second Amendment Preservation Act, which seeks to prohibit Coloradans, including officers, from enforcing federal laws “that infringe on the right to bear arms.” The bill was reviewed, and later killed on a party-line vote, by the House State, Civic, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. 

During the hearing, witnesses from several gun control groups brought up statistics on deaths of children from firearms, saying guns are the No. 1 cause of death for children ages 5 to 18. 

Lorusso said the previous testimony from the “gun control lobby” contained “falsities, malfeasance and deceit.”

Gun control advocates and progressive organizations called Lorusso’s comments “racist.” 

“For the gun lobby to suggest ‘removing’ Black males under the age of nineteen from gun death statistics in order to understate the total impact of gun violence is a racist and immoral devaluation of Black lives,” Sara Loflin of ProgressNow Colorado said in a statement, adding it is an “affront to the humanity of every person of color in America. The death of children caused by gun violence in America is an assault on our future, and must never be racially downplayed to achieve a desired statistic. It is deplorable that anyone would suggest otherwise.”

During the hearing, Lorusso claimed automobile crashes are the No. 1 cause of death among children. 

He added that most of those gun deaths, as much as 98%, are committed with illegally acquired and illegally possessed firearms.

The article in the New England Journal of Medicine cited by Brown, said previous analysis, which examined the data through 2016, placed firearm-related injuries second to motor vehicle crashes. But since 2016, that gap has narrowed, and, in 2020, gun-related injuries have become the leading cause of death in the age group. 

Lorusso, who hosts the two-hour program Common Nonsense on 1360 KHNC, a conservative talk radio show based in Johnstown, has testified on behalf of RMGO in community hearings throughout 2022, including in Boulder last August, where he said his group would sue over a handful of ordinances adopted in Boulder County communities on guns. In July, RMGO obtained a temporary restraining order against the town of Superior over its ordinance banning so-called “assault weapons.”

Lorusso doubled down on his comments in an interview with KUSA Tuesday, describing Black children who are killed by guns as “gangland violence” and said those deaths are separate from gun deaths for children of other races. 

On Wednesday, Taylor Rhodes, RMGO’s executive director, told KMGH that Lorusso is the group’s most junior staffer and that he was nervous during the committee testimony. Rhodes did not apologize for Lorusso’s comments. 

“If you have testified on behalf of a large organization, or even on behalf of yourself, this can be a very nerve-wracking exercise,” Rhodes said. “In his testimony, he misspoke when discussing a heated topic surrounding the gun issue. Rocky Mountain Gun Owners will continually support and defend the Second Amendment freedoms of all law-abiding Coloradans,” and then added there would be no further comment on the matter.