MMMarch

REMARKS MADE BY RICK AND MARTHA,

MAGGIE'S STEPFATHER AND MOTHER

ON STATE CAPITOL STEPS, LANSING, MICHIGAN

We are here to represent our family and our daughter,Maggie. We shared the responsibilities of raising our children and we stand together today. Each day is a struggle to find hope and today, Mother's Day, has been hard.

A year ago on Mother's Day, we celebrated at a dinner with our daughter and son and Maggie gave her mother a rose bush for her garden. It is planted and now preparing to bloom alongside the other plants that she bought for her mom on Mother's Day over the years. She was a loving daughter, happy to show her love for her mother. They were good friends.

A year ago, we were watching Maggie finish her first year at Kalamazoo College, proud of her for making it through her freshman year. She was an excellent student all through her years of school but this was a particularly tough year for her. She loved science and history and had decided to be a lawyer.

A year ago, as we looked out into our backyard, we watched Maggie with her camera, chasing butterflies in order to capture their beauty on film. She was a lover of the outdoors.

A year ago at this time we were impressed with the friends that Maggie had made at college. She was a good friend, with a fine sense of humor and compassion for others.

But last fall in the early morning hours of the 18th of October, our beloved 19 year old Maggie was murdered by her ex-boyfriend on the Kalamazoo College campus. He sought to control and possess her, using her compassion and feelings for him to keep contact with her even after she had clearly and firmly broken up with him. In hindsight we can see that he hid the problems he had from all of us and had focused all of his anger for his life on her. And he had access to a gun.

Within a few weeks of the death of our daughter, and still in shock, we read and heard reports of similar gun deaths in Battle Creek, Detroit and New York. There, other families lost their cherished children too because someone was angry, had a grudge and they had access to a gun. We're not sure when we first heard of the Million Mom March if it was before Maggie died or after. As a family we have always believed in the common-sense, grass roots ideals promoted by this March. We have always believed that the non-violent examples we set in our families and our jobs were the right things to do.

We found out that this was not enough. Violence reached out and engulfed our daughter and shattered our family.

What seemed impossible happened to us.

We share our grief with other families dealing with such losses those who are here today and also gathering elsewhere across the United States. We are sure that we do not wish any more families to experience the sorrow and loss we feel. It is indescribable. We are all determined to honor our Maggie by working to end violence in our communities, particularly violence against women and children. We are encouraged by the number of moms involved here today and those that we sent off from Kalamazoo on Friday night, headed for Washington D.C. We know that you don't want your family to know what we know, and that is why you are here. The hallmarks of the Million Mom March makes common sense to Maggie's family.

We believe that every handgun should be registered to a licensed owner. That makes common sense.

We believe also as a family that all guns should be sold with or retrofitted with locks to prevent accidents or reckless use. That makes common sense.

We also firmly believe that existing gun laws should be enforced. That makes common sense

Maggie's family also believes that more sensible gun legislation should be written and passed. The man who murdered our beloved Maggie purchased a gun within legal requirements but no one seemed to know how angry he was when he bought it or that he brought that gun onto the college campus. Further, we are very horrified that he bought the gun, using a driver's license with a Kalamazoo College dormitory address on it. As we stand on the Capitol steps today, we find it outrageous that we can pass legislation, like Michigan Public Act 118, to require a college student to register to vote using one, permanent residence address rather than a college address but a gun can be bought and brought to that same college address without intervention. Is it more important to control the vote of a college student than it is to control the presence of guns on a college campus?

A recent Harvard School of Public Health report on a survey, released on July 2, 1999, estimated that over 3.5 per cent or 450,00 college students currently keep a working firearm at college. Many colleges have zero-tolerance weapons policies requiring the storing of these guns in a safe place by school officials. But the college needs to be aware of the presence of a gun through self-reporting or, as in Maggie's case, by the gun shop owner notifying the college that an individual living on the campus has just purchased a gun. We believe that legislation requiring this kind of notification by a gun shop owner should be passed.

That makes common sense to Maggie's family. The presence of guns on campuses in such close restrictive quarters as a college dorm, is another potentially violent situation waiting to explode in our society. Much has been made that guns don't kill people, people kill people. But when people with problems, people who are angry, resentful or careless get guns, people get hurt. And good people like our daughter and other children get killed.

Guns, in the hands of angry or careless people, kill people.

We must do everything we can to restrict the number of guns in our society, improve the safety features of the guns in our society, educate people about safe gun techniques, and educate everyone to not accept violence as a solution in our society.

All of those factors make the most common sense to Maggie's family. It is clearly common sense that working on ALL of these factors simultaneously will make our country safer for our families. This is not about lobbyists or politicians or special interest groups, on either side of the issue, posturing and influencing that this change or that change should or shouldn't or can't be done. Preventing violence in our lives is about all of us, rising up to make sure that all of these things be done without compromise and without delay and without waiting for the next poll to gauge the November vote.

It's about common sense and our families. We will always remember Maggie and carry her in our hearts.

We want to thank all of the moms who came out on Mother's Day today in spite of criticism or suggestions in the media that they should be at home with their families. By your presence here today, working to end the violence against our children, you have shown what it truly means to be a mother to your children.

Happy Mother's Day