And there's no indication the bloodshed will stop anytime soon. Late on March 3, the Aurora Police Department reveals that a thus-far-unidentified man was fatally shot in the parking lot of a condominium complex on the 12000 block of East Harvard Avenue in the southwest part of the city.
In 2018, Westword profiled Gun Memorial, which had been launched three years earlier by Steve Tarzia, a software engineer based in Chicago. Early on, he decided to include information about every gun death, including homicides, tragic accidents and suicide. "The statistics are quite clear that suicides are much more effective — you're much more likely to die — if you have a gun," he told us. "Shots to the head are 98 percent fatal, whereas if you try to overdose, there may only be a 5 or 10 percent chance that you'll kill yourself. And suicidal thoughts are often temporary and may be related to events. To get a second chance may often mean the difference between life and death, but there aren't many second chances with guns."
The Colorado page of the Gun Memorial site underscores the sad reality that most gun deaths receive modest and frequently cursory media attention. Only a few of the cases have been covered in detail, often owing to the circumstances of crimes involved. For instance, Ricardo Medina-Rojas was working at a Lafayette nursing home when he was killed by 95-year-old Okey Payne, perhaps the oldest Coloradan to be charged with murder. And the death of Pamela Cabriales after a February 20 shooting made headlines because the fourteen-year-old who allegedly shot the young mother in her vehicle may be charged as an adult.

Clockwise from upper left: Leah Carlene Knowlton, Joseph Viera, John Richard Roth, Sylvio Anglada, Tashianna Blake and Nathan A-Kol Bright all died by gun during early 2021.
To put the death count for the first two months of 2021 in perspective, here are the number of Colorado victims counted by Gun Memorial during the same period for each year since its creation:
January-February 2015: 8
January-February 2016: 10
January-February 2017: 23
January-February 2018: 22
January-February 2019: 13
January-February 2020: 19
The names of the 33 Colorado victims from January and February are listed below in descending chronological order, along with links to their Gun Memorial pages. There, visitors will be able to connect to (frequently brief) news articles about what happened, light virtual candles in memory of victims and read the comments of friends, family members and loved ones, as well as leave remarks of their own.
Margie Crowe
February 27
Roxann Martinez
February 25
Nathan A-Kol Bright
February 22
Tad Trefethen
February 21
Thomas James Rushing
February 21
Jared Augustine Martinez
February 20
Pamela Cabriales
February 20
Tashianna Blake
February 20
Cesar Alberto Rodriguez
February 10
Shumma Agar
February 10
James Martinez
February 8
Yzeed Sayyaheen
February 6
John Richard Roth
February 5
Dustyn James
February 3
Joseph Viera
February 3
Christopher Patrick Lopez
February 3
Pheonix Vigil
February 3

Clockwise from upper left: More lives lost in early 2021 include Paul Baca, Preston Brown Jr., Suni Marie Grooms, Ricardo Medina-Rojas, Marcos Bencomo and Yzeed Sayyaheen.
February 3
Sylvio Anglada
February 3
Ronald Harman
January 31
Brian Connelly
January 30
Lewis Nicholas Garcia
January 27
Geronimo Alvarado
January 26
La'Zic Lavell "Zay" Abraham
January 26
Chase Carter Martinez
January 23
Jameson Martinez
January 23
Paul Baca
January 22
Preston Brown Jr.
January 22
Marcos Bencomo
January 21
Leah Carlene Knowlton
January 20
Imanol Del Valle
January 17
Atlas Roe Grooms
January 13
Suni Marie Grooms
January 13