My daughter, Ryanne Mace, was the youngest of the five students slain in the shooting at Northern Illinois University on 2/14/08, just three months shy of her 20th birthday. Ryanne was a beautiful person through and through. She was incredibly bright, insightful, funny, warm, friendly, curious, trust-worthy and kindhearted. She was non-judgmental and treated everyone with respect. She would have been an outstanding, responsible, thoughtful, productive member of society. Any parent would be absolutely thrilled to have such a wonderful kid. My husband and I miss her terribly and always will.
There has to be a way to stem the tide of gun violence that seems to be infesting our nation. We should all be striving not only for better laws, but also for better ways in which to enforce the good laws that we do have. The background system needs fixing. Background checks must be performed for all gun sales. We must reinstate the assault gun ban and also ban the sale of high-capacity ammunition clips – they have no function other than to kill as many people in as short a time as possible. And, as we are all aware, there are already far too many victims of gun violence.
—-
Our granddaughter Ryanne Mace was one of five students killed in a classroom shooring at Northern Illinois University on Valentine’s Day three years ago. She was a lovely, talented young woman who dreamed of a life helping others. We miss her deeply, and remain steadfastly committed to advocating policies that may help prevent such future tragedies.
Well said. We remain tremendously proud of her, and of you and Eric.
Love, Dad