Wayne Laugesen

Who is Wayne Laugesen?

Wayne Laugesen is an American columnist, video producer, gun rights advocate and editorial page editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette, procured in 2012 by conservative Colorado billionaire Philip Anschutz. Laugesen writes for the National Catholic Register, Faith & Family magazine, is a former editor of Soldier of Fortune, Boulder Weekly, and was managing editor of the former "Consumers' Research" national magazine in Washington, D.C.

Laugesen, who considers himself a conservative libertarian, has criticized ambitious urban planners for creating elite environments that exclude minorities and the poor. His work became the topic of a journalistic ethics debate in 2004, when he smashed historic windows from a Boulder, Colo., home in protest of historic preservation orders by the Boulder City Council—an act that led media critic Michael Roberts to coin the phrase "commando journalism".

As assistant editor of Soldier of Fortune in the 1990s, Laugesen helped obtain guns and training for women in a Boulder neighborhood that was stalked by a serial rapist. He brought an obscure vice principal to the forefront by giving him Soldier of Fortune's annual Humanitarian Award for using a handgun to stop a school massacre in Pearl, Miss.