On June 10, 2011 my mother, Sheila DuCros Salley, traveled from her home in Dover, New Hampshire, across the state border into Maine. She arrived at the Kittery Trading Post and purchased a gun for $394.94. She drove home to New Hampshire, test fired the weapon in a couple of her closets, then fired it one more time into her head, immediately ending her life. Only by sheer luck was no one else injured or killed with her naïve practice shooting through walls.

My mother was responsible for her own choice and actions. However, this death could have been prevented.

My mother managed to successfully be interviewed by different people in the gun department at the Kittery Trading Post and none of them suspected she was a danger to herself. But, if the rules and regulations for purchasing a handgun were different this sale would have not taken place. No one who knew my mother at the time would say that she was in the state of mind to own a weapon.

If Maine and New Hampshire had a gun licensing system in place, things might have turned out differently. New York and New Jersey both require references before you can get a license to buy a handgun. If Maine and New Hampshire had a waiting period things might have turned out differently. Rhode Island and Maryland both have a seven day waiting period before you can purchase a handgun.

Would my mother still be alive if a reference phone call had taken place or a waiting period was required and the gun sale had been prevented? Would she have been determined to find another method? Would we have been able to help her view life with a new perspective and hope to get through a difficult time? There is no way to know.

But researchers do know that when it comes to suicide, means matter. Guns are more lethal. They’re quick. And they’re irreversible. People who attempt suicide by other means are less likely to die. And nine out of ten people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide later.

If I had been given the opportunity to say, “No this woman is not mentally healthy enough to own a weapon.” I know we could have tried to help her another day.

In the 1960′s I was a teacher at a school in Prince Georges County, Maryland. One Election Day when school was out, children from the neighborhood gathered at the home of one of the youngsters and they were playing in the basement without adult supervision. One child produced a handgun and the children handed it around just as nine and 10 year-olds are likely to do. One of the boys pointed it at another boy and pulled the trigger, killing the boy. The boy who shot the gun was so terrified he ran out of the house and could not be found for hours. The boy who was killed was popular, a Boy Scout, and very bright. He was buried in his Boy Scout uniform. I will never get the image out of my mind of the boy there in the open coffin. The incident completely tore apart a once very close-knit neighborhood. Names have been forgotten but I am sure the boy who pulled the trigger had his life changed forever.

My cousin Johnny Mo Trover was murdered by his wife with a handgun. She shot him while he slept. Then she tried to convince police that an intruder was the gunman. When her story started to unravel and it seemed like she would be going to jail, she killed herself with a shotgun. They left behind three children who had to be raised by Johnny’s brother. The interesting thing was that my husband’s cousin Bobby was also shot by his wife while he slept – five times. Amazingly, he survived after a year in the hospital, but for that reason, I won’t have a gun in the house. Mental illness can occur in any family and this is the result – two deaths, three orphaned children, and one seriously injured man.

My son did not lose his life, and no one was hurt except the the person doing the shooting. My son works for Mueller Industries in Brighton, Michigan. On January 8, 2013 an employee who had been fired called the factory that morning and said he had three semi automatic weapons and he was coming to kill as many people as he could. The factory installed new security entrances after the Sandy Hook shooting in Conn. The factory went on lock-down and the man could not get in so he thought he could shoot his way in but the entrances did not give. The police were called and they did get the man before anyone was hurt. My son was texting me about the situation as it was happening. This was one of the most frightening days of my life, and I did not know what to do. I felt so helpless to help my son and those that were there with him. I want to support in any way I can to get these weapons out of the hands of mentally unstable people.

My son, Adrian was shot and killed while innocently walking down the street on June 6, 1995. My life has been changed forever. The streets of Trenton, NJ are worse now than I can ever remember. Guns are easily accessible to any and every one. Shootings occur almost daily taking the lives of dear love ones. When will this stop?

When I was a teen, a young friend of mine, Guy Parsons, committed suicide with his family’s Colt .45 revolver. The gun wasn’t locked. The gun had been bought for family protections. But as statistics tell us, a gun in the home is 22-times more likely to harm someone in the home than to be used to protect them. This boy had grown up around guns, and I had shot alongside him with .22 rifles at Boy Scout camp. But children and guns don’t mix. It’s time for reasonable gun regulation, including Child Access Protection laws, nationwide. I am also a survivor of a shooting. A couple years after Guy killed himself, a teenage boy fatally shot another in the head with his family’s gun. It happened only a few feet away from me. No one should have to cradle a dying teen in their arms, as I did.

Twenty-four year old Sheldon Innocent was shot to death on April 30, 2011, in Springfield, MA. He wanted to look good for a family celebration where his wife, year old son, and grandparents, Betty and Bill Innocent, would be. An escaped criminal took the life of a young man he did not know; who had never even had a parking ticket. This was the young man whom other young men went to for assistance and guidance. Eighteen months later the Newton tragedy happened. When I came home Betty was at the kitchen sink crying hysterically. We, Sheldon’s Grandparents, cried for the Sandy Hook Elementary School victims; we cried for Sheldon; we cried for the untolled useless deaths by guns that will happen in the future. How soon will we be crying and crying and crying again?

After being stalked by an ex-boyfriend, Raymond Caron of Bath, ME, my sister, Carol, obtained a restraining order. Ray Caron was diagnosed as dangerous, especially if armed. My siblings lived in Ft. Myers, Florida at the time. On December 5, 1985, Ray Caron took my brother as hostage so that my sister would open the door to him. My brother burst inside, and was shot multiple times. He survived for 10 days, and died on Carol’s birthday, December 15th, 1985. Ray Caron only needed one shot, being a former Marine sharpshooter, to kill my sister on that day. He had gone to the VA for help with mental illness, but was refused. He couldn’t buy a gun in Florida, but had no problem going to a bordering state to buy one.

Ray Caron shot himself in the head, causing his death a few days later. Upon learning what his son had done, Carons’ father had a heart attack and died (in ME).

It is so long over-due to take action. Treat a gun like a car….criminal background checks, licensing, testing to obtain a license, personal moral and financial
responsibilities, inspection of the weapon for safety, etc. DO IT NOW. My sister was 28, my brother 37.

OUTLAW Automatic weapons and large ammo capability, and make us safe again. This has nothing to do with gun rights……just public safety and sanity.

Fifteen years ago in Tampa, Florida on December 19, 1996, my 17 year old UNARMED son, Michael G. Rodriguez was murdered by a man carrying an illegal handgun. He committed a murder, but he was never charged…

My son Michael approached an unmarked car in a South Tampa neighborhood and was murdered by a Domino’s pizza deliveryman, Clifford Jordan, who claimed afterward that our son threatened to rob him. Jordan, who was inside his unmarked vehicle fired and killed Michael within five seconds after our son approached the car. My son was unarmed, sober and had no criminal record.

It was the same kind of fear and hate-filled tragedy that we see in the Trayvon Martin murder in Sanford, Fl Even though the Stand Your Ground Law was not yet in place, the Tampa Police Department and the State Attorney’s office honored the Shoot First mindset.

We must end the senseless tragedies of gun violence that has consumed our country. We must support and enforce strong sensible gun laws to end the massacres. If not now, when? You or yours could be the next victim

My older brother, Chip, was killed on the streets of Chicago in January of 1986. He was working on a street crew for Peoples Energy of Chicago. He was gunned down by an errant bullet fired by a youth involved in a neighborhood quarrel. He left behind his wife and three children, his mother, three brothers and a sister. Guns of any sort, be they handguns or assault weapons of mass destruction, escalate volatile situations into lethal ones such as the circumstances that killed my brother. America leads the world in deaths by guns. Let’s make sensible gun control laws to stop this carnage.

Like some many others, my best friend had a moment of utter despair. Had he not had a gun, he would never have killed himself.

My sister was murdered in 1991. The gunman who killed her in her own home was never apprehended. She never had the opportunity to meet her five grandchildren and they never knew the talented woman who could have taught them so much. Her younger daughter died of leukemia three years ago on the night before Christmas Eve. Her daughter was robbed of the mother who could and would have supported her during her illness. I am 70 years old, my other sister is 86, and our brother is 74. I fear that we will never know what happened or why. It is an ache that never goes away. You do not recover from this kind of loss. You accommodate it so that you can move on with your life but the pain is always there. A song, a picture, a flower, anything that triggers a memory brings the pain back again and again.

My beautiful son Jacob Dwight, a Christian, a lifeguard, college student and LOVING son was shot by a man who acquired his gun legally, although he lied on his application stating he did not abuse alcohol or drugs. He blew .14 with a breathalizer after he shot my beloved son, whose family had to watch him die while on life support in a Fort Wayne, Indiana hospital. I could not let him go. It has ruined our lives: mine, as his mother, his father’s and his brother’s. This crime happened in a small town that was not equipped to handle such an event. My son’s killer was given a light sentence and he lied about the circumstances and what really happened. He was rumored to have been threatening others with the .357 he bought with his last paycheck before he was laid off from work. He served 129 days in jail, and June 11, 2012 was sentenced to six years. He plead guilty with an expected date of release of May 5, 2014. The state asked for the maximum sentence but the judge believed the defendant, who lied continually. Our son, a trusting beautiful soul whom everyone loved, deserved to have his life and all the expectations that come with that right. We miss him and love him so much more than words can say. I still can’t believe he was taken. His time on earth was so short: May 17, 1990 – November 16, 2010. Our lives are destroyed by one man’s obsession with a gun and it was not taken as seriously as it should have been.

On May 13, 1972, my 20 year old brother Michael was fatally shot following a robbery on a CTA”el” train on the way home from Loyola University. This Mother’s Day weekend, my family observed the 40th anniversary of his death. When I ask my students of Oakton Community College in Chicago how many of them know someone who was shot or killed with a gun, a third of the hands in my class go up. Gun violence is an epidemic affecting our students like it never affected earlier generations. We are so offended about Olympic uniforms made overseas. We should be concerned about guns made and sold in the USA.

Remembering Richard “Rich” Harris entrepreneur, father, son,uncle and friend.

Rich leaves behind two wonderful children Rich Jr and Rich’elle. He looked forward to raising both his children together and becoming a father of his son Rich Jr. whom he never got the chance to meet. His life was taking in a senseless act of violence.   But his children, his girl and his family will forever remember his kind words, loving heart and quick witt.

May you Rest In Peace Love.

We love and miss you and you will never be forgotten and your place will NEVER B Filled.

11/24/1980 – 06/16/2011