Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence

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Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press
Once again, Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence joins a stunned nation in grieving the latest campus shooting. The gunman, a graduate student at Northern Illinois University, reportedly had recently stopped taking medication and had been behaving erratically during the previous weeks. On Valentine's Day 2008 he arrived on campus with a guitar case containing a  shotgun and three handguns and opened fired, killing five people and wounding sixteen others. According to MSNBC.com, "Two of the weapons — the pump-action Remington shotgun and a Glock 9mm handgun — were purchased legally less than a week ago."

We offer our heartfelt condolences to the loved ones of Daniel Parmenter, 20; Catalina Garcia, 20; Ryanne Mace, 19; Gayle Dubowski, 20; and Julianna Gehant, 32.

Also of note: MCAHV is currently involved in planning a training for campus security officers across Maine together with Project Safe Neighborhoods and the US Attorney's office. The training will be held in late March or early April.
Faces of Virginia Tech
On April 16, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho went on a shooting spree at the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia where he was an English major. He killed 32 students and teachers before turning the gun on himself. Cho used a .22 caiber semi-automatic handgun and a 9mm semi-automatic handgun in the attacks. Cho had been diagnosed with and treated for a severe anxiety disorder beginning in middle school, had been accused of stalking two female students of the Virginia Tech campus, had been urged by at least one professor to seek counseling, and had been declared mentally ill by a Virginia special justice. In spite of these facts, Cho was able to purchase lethal weapons. MCAHV is working with the Maine Legislature to ensure that persons in Maine adjudicated to have a mental illness are added to the National Instant Background Check System (NICS). If Cho's name had been on that list, this horrific tragedy could have been prevented.
Faces of Omaha Mall Shooting

On December 5, 2007, Robert Hawkins, 19, walked into a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska and fired more than 30 rounds of ammunition into a crowd of holiday shoppers with an AK-47 assault weapon before turning the gun on himself. He struck 11 people; six died where they fell, one died on the way to the hospital, and one died after 45 minutes of emergency treatment. Three others were wounded, two seriously.

Hawkins had suffered and been treated for depression and was living with a friend's family. His friend's mother had been worried about him and said that he was "like a lost puppy" and she feared at times that he was suicidal. His girlfriend had recently broken up with him and he had been fired from his job at MacDonald's. The day before the shooting he showed her the AK-47 assault weapon that he had easily retrieved from his stepfather's closet. It did not alarm her.

Are assault weapons the norm in this country? What do they mean in our culture? Do we need them for hunting or protection, or are they really useful for gunning down people in public places? Was the assault weapon ban a threat to the "right to bear arms"? Is this what the writers of the Constitution had in mind?

We are saddened by the pain that the loved ones of the victims will suffer this season. Our thoughts go out to the friends and families of Diane Trent, Angie Schuster, John McDonald, Beverly Flynn, Maggie Webb, Gary Joy, Gary Scharf, and Jan Jorgensen.