Evergreen High School shooting raised questions about gun storage. There are no clear answers a year later.

The parents whose children were at Evergreen High School when a 16-year-old opened fire, injuring two and then fatally shooting himself, still have a lot of questions about how and why it happened. In the year since the shooting, after an investigation and a thorough report detailing what the sheriff’s office found and even some legislation passed to catch violent attacks before they happen, parents keep coming back to one question in particular: how the teenager got the gun he used in the attack. There is no clear answer in this case, and Colorado’s gun laws, while more robust than most states’, were not applicable to the Evergreen shooting. Still, the incomplete picture fuels parents’ frustration and has them pointing to a broader challenge with Colorado’s safe storage laws and whether they could have prevented that horrific day. 10, 2025, Desmond Holly brought a Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver, which left scars, mental and physical, on students and rattled parents in the mountain town, about 30 minutes west of Denver.

Missing media or need the complete publisher report? Open Colorado Public Radio ↗