Less than two months have passed since attorney and Boulder resident Lindasue Smollen paid for an anti-gun violence billboard on Colo. 93, and as of Monday, she changed the message again.

The sign now gives a list of seven mass shootings in the United States — including the Aurora theater shooting — the number of people killed and the fact that the shooter used an AR-15 rifle. The death toll of 205 does not include 11 people killed Saturday at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Smollen is laying down $3,000 a month for the space — and $500 for the graphics — and she said she will continue to change the message in an effort to keep it as timely as possible.

“My sense about the billboard is I want to keep this very present in people’s minds,” Smollen said. “I want the conversation to continue.”

In September, Smollen bought space on a billboard just south of the Boulder/Jefferson county line, that pointed out that more than 1.4 million Americans have died from gun violence since 1970, a higher number than all Americans killed in all wars in U.S. history, about 1.3 million.

The sign ended with the plea “stop the thoughts and prayers.”

The new billboard message lining out the number of shootings carried out by an assailant carrying an AR-15 again states that “thoughts and prayers” are not enough.

“It’s not quite as polite as the first one,” Smollen said. “It’s also very factual.”

AR-15-style rifles have gained notoriety in recent years because of their association with numerous mass shootings in the United States, including the Sandy Hook massacre in Connecticut, during which gunman fatally shot 20 small children, six teachers and his mother before taking his own life as police closed in; and the Aurora theater shooting in which a gunman opened fire on moviegoers, killing 12 and injuring 70.

Earlier this year, Boulder City Council passed an ordinance banning the possession of such weapons. The ordinance is currently undergoing two challenges in federal court.

Golden resident Nicole Steinbach saw the older sign while driving past and has seen a mockup of the new sign. She said she appreciates that Smollen paid for the signs and is now crowdfunding money to pay for more.

“They are really fact based and that doesn’t have to be partisan,” Steinbach said. “It’s disappointing that an individual has to do this because our leaders are refusing to save kids’ lives.”

Steinbach said she has experience with firearms and has been hunting, but she also is a mother and her child’s right to life should supercede the right of someone to possess a “weapon of war.”

“And I have the right to go to a movie theater, to go to church, to go to a synagogue, to go to a mall,” she said. “I have a right to go shopping at King Soopers and not get shot.”

Smollen said the graphics for the new sign were completed last week, so she could not include the 11 people who were gunned down Saturday at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, allegedly by a man carrying an AR-15 and screaming anti-Semitic slurs.

She added that three mass shootings happened between the time her September sign graphic was completed and when it was posted, so it’s next to impossible to stay current on the subject.

“How do you stay on top of the horror in this country?” she asked. “You can’t have a billboard that takes two or three weeks do and keep it timely. There’s always another shooting.”

Smollen has started a Gofundme account to help pay for future billboards, and as of Wednesday evening afternoon it had raised nearly $4,000.

She said the gun control debate is not partisan, because leaders in both parties are failing to keep the public safe. Rather than advocate for gun control, elected officials often say “now is not the time to talk about gun control” or pronounce that a massacre could have been stopped by another armed person, such as a security guard.

Smollen has civil conversations with gun advocates and has found common ground with them. But she knows other people are steadfastly against any sort of gun control and argue, incorrectly she says, that the Second Amendment guarantees an unrestricted right to guns, particularly military-style weapons.

“Their right to own a gun and possess an assault weapon should not trump my right not to live in fear and worry about going to a mall,” she said. “It’s a balancing test. I’m not looking to take everyone’s guns away.”

Part of the solution, she said, will come from keeping the discussion going, no matter how uncomfortable it gets.

“We need to have the conversation over and over again,” she said. “If we need to show the bodies of first- and second-graders in class to show people what happens, that’s what we need to do. As horrible as that sounds, it’s reality.

“I give a shit, and I think it’s time to put it out there.”

Smollen’s Gofundme page can be found at bit.ly/2SAojoD.

John Bear: 303-473-1355, bearj@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/johnbearwithme