Eleven Years Later: GIFFORDS Remembers Victims of Aurora Theater Shooting

Washington DC — Today, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, founder of the gun violence prevention organization GIFFORDS, released a statement marking 11 years since the mass shooting on July 20, 2012, in Aurora, Colorado, when a gunman killed 12 people and injured 70 people during a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises. 

The Jessi Redfield Ghawi Act for Gun Violence Victims’ Access to Justice and Firearms Industry Accountability (Jessi’s Law) became law earlier this year with GIFFORDS’s help. The law is named after Jessi Redfield Ghawi, who was killed in the Aurora shooting. It repeals Colorado’s extreme, anti-victim gun industry immunity law and creates an opportunity for victims to seek fair justice in court when they are harmed by illegal and wrongful conduct by the corporate gun industry.

“Eleven years have passed since darkness fell upon Aurora, Colorado. Twelve innocent lives were taken, 70 people were injured, and a community was left mourning the lives lost and forever changed. Today we remember those taken from us too soon and the families forever scarred by this tragedy. This day is a haunting reminder of the urgent need to end gun violence. With unwavering courage, we must continue our fight, not only to remember the fallen but also to protect the future.

“It also reminds us that progress is possible. Since this horrific tragedy, Colorado has acted and passed significant gun safety legislation, including most recently Jessi’s Law. We can save lives if we continue to work together.”

“Eleven years ago we lost our beloved daughter Jessi in the Aurora movie theater shooting. Like far too many families across this nation, we know the pain and ongoing heartache of gun violence. While we still grieve the loss of our loved one, we have turned our pain into purpose. During these past 11 years, through our organization Survivors Empowered in Jessi’s memory, we have personally responded to the immediate needs of more than 20 public mass shooting victims and learned firsthand from their anguish that we have not done enough and can never stop. After our daughter Jessi was taken from us in the Aurora movie theater massacre, we sought justice as any family would. Instead of compassion and action, we were punished under Colorado’s harsh and punitive immunity laws. This year, we worked tirelessly to pass The Jessi Redfield Ghawi Act for Gun Violence Victims’ Access to Justice and Firearms Industry Accountability Act to ensure that victims and families like ours are protected when seeking justice. We will continue in our fight to end gun violence because we know that is what our daughter Jessi would have wanted.” 

Since the Aurora shooting, Colorado legislators have worked hand in hand with GIFFORDS to take action. They have passed legislation addressing background checks and large-capacity ammunition magazines, as well as laws to require the reporting of a lost or stolen firearm and establish extreme risk protection orders. After a mass shooting in Boulder, legislators passed laws to establish an Office of Gun Violence Prevention and close the Charleston Loophole, as well as to enact a law to allow municipalities to regulate their own gun laws. In 2022, local communities passed the first local ordinances that GIFFORDS helped draft. 

Prior to the passage of the Jessi’s Law, Colorado law provided very broad immunity to the gun industry from many types of liability, slamming courtroom doors shut on cases even the federal gun industry immunity law (PLCAA) would allow. Even worse, up until the passage of this law, Colorado was one of just three states in the country that forced victims who try to sue the corporate gun industry to pay the corporation’s legal bills by default, punishing and bankrupting families just for daring to seek fair justice and corporate accountability in court. With passage of this legislation, Colorado replaces one of the nation’s most egregiously anti-victim laws with a much fairer law securing more equal rights for victims of gun violence.

After losing their daughter in the Aurora mass shooting, Sandy and Lonnie Phillips brought a lawsuit seeking improved safety practices and $0 in compensation from the companies that sold thousands of rounds of ammunition, body armor, and other products—no questions asked—to their daughter’s killer. But after one motion, the court ruled that Colorado law prohibited victims like them from bringing suit against the firearm industry and ordered them to pay over $200,000 in fees to those very same companies. Learn more about their story.