Mother Fights to Change Gun Laws
By Nancy Grape
Maine Sunday Telegram - Sunday, February 4, 2007
Cathy Crowley of Lewiston is easy to recognize. With her dark hair touched with gray, a generous smile and clothes that have seen plenty of wearing, she looks like many women you've stood behind in a checkout line at Wal-Mart.
In May 2004, however, Crowley went to Wal-Mart for a very different reason.
She wanted a store manager to introduce her to the sales clerk who, earlier that weekend, had sold a gun to her 18-year-old son °© Laurier J. Belanger Jr. Belanger, dark-eyed and handsome, would not be coming in again. He had used the gun to kill himself.
Crowley didn't meet the sales clerk, she met an explanation. The store was obeying the law, the store manager told her. If she thought the law was wrong, she should take it up with her elected officials.
So there it was. Another teenage suicide in Maine. Another "why?" that might never be answered. Another family shattered in silence.
No, strike that. For Cathy Crowley, silence wasn't good enough. It wasn't good enough in 2004 and it's still not good enough today.
Even as the gun ended her son's life, it began his mother's crusade to convince Maine lawmakers to face the fact that 18-year-old kids like her son can walk into stores licensed to sell guns in this state and walk out carrying rifles or shotguns that too many turn quickly on themselves. (I say "rifles and shotguns" because federal law prohibits federally licensed stores from selling handguns to people younger than 21.)
Dr. David Hemenway of the Harvard School of Public Health Services understands the link between guns and teenage suicide all too well. "In states where there are more guns, there are more youth suicides," he says bluntly. While Maine takes pride in responsible gun ownership, this state's teenage suicide rate ranks highest in New England.
The most common forms of suicide among teens involve drugs or "cutting yourself," Hemenway says. In New England, only about 3 percent succeed. Change the suicide scenario to include a gun, however, and the death rate soars °© to 91 percent, he declares.
Hemenway drives that point home in a first-rate Maine documentary film called "There Ought To Be A Law," which premiered to a standing ovation at Central Maine Community College in Auburn earlier this month and filled the Gerry Talbot Auditorium at the University of Southern Maine last week.
A WORTHY CAUSE
It is, from start to finish, Cathy Crowley's story and it's a glowing reminder of the greatness of ordinary people when a cause worth championing fires them up.
"The difference between the person I met two years ago, in 2004, and the person who was standing before that auditorium full of people at the premiere in Auburn was amazing," Shoshana Hoose, a creator of the film, told me last week. Hoose made the documentary with Anita Clearfield, a producer for Maine PBS, and Geoffrey Leighton of Durham, who has his own production company.
Their film traces how Crowley, rich in the kind of determination Maine prizes, went to work. Writing to every lawmaker she could contact, she looked for allies ready to help protect other families from the ordeal she was living through. And her effort paid off.
Rep. Margaret Craven, D-Lewiston, stepped forward to sponsor legislation that would require a 10-day waiting period in Maine before a firearm could be transferred to anyone under 22 years of age.
I've parsed those last 21 words carefully, because, as Crowley would soon learn, once words like "waiting period," "transferred" and "22 years of age," were packaged into a bill (LD 310) headed through the legislative process, every one of them would prove to be controversial.
Crowley had to learn fast.
"I'm very nervous," she told Craven as they approached a public hearing on the bill.
"Go ahead and be nervous," Craven replied, adding gently, "Just tell your story from your heart."
And that Crowley did, the film shows us, her words buttressed by the tears and hesitation of terrible loss.
If this were a Hollywood movie and not a Maine documentary, Craven's bill and Crowley's testimony might combine to give us a happy ending. But the political world into which Cathy Crowley moved that day is like a chessboard with powerful players already in place. And none of those players is more powerful than those who lobby for gun interests - the National Rifle Association and the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine.
When Crowley came up against them - no matter how polite or indirect the encounter °© the fight for LD 310 was over. As Sen. Ethan Strimling, D-Portland, suggests in the film, "It might not be David and Goliath, but it's close."
"She paid a price in a lot of ways for what she did," Hoose said quietly. "She paid a price in terms of a lot of people saying a lot of nasty things about her. She lost a lot of time from work and she did lose her job. It's great to see her getting some more support now."
NEEDS SUPPORT
Above all, what Crowley needs, Hoose told me, is public support. Because she's still doing all she can to give Maine a reasonable law governing sales of guns to vulnerable young people.
"I hope the film points out the fact that most people in Maine do support much stricter gun laws than we have now," Hoose said, "but it's not an issue they take the time to speak out on. So she's hoping that will change."
As one audience member in Auburn told the local newspaper, "Another sunrise can make all the difference."
Crowley will be back at the State House this session, promoting a new bill °© again sponsored by Craven. As usual, it will be an uphill fight. This time, however, she has a fine documentary film playing at gatherings across Maine to help her.
"There Ought To Be A Law." And someday, if Cathy Crowley has her way, there will be.
Nancy Grape comments on state and national issues for the Maine Sunday Telegram. She can be contacted at: spargrape@msn.com
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