Million Mom rally takes aim at violence
By Keiko Morris
Seattle Times staff reporter
Colleen Rodland watched as tiny paint-smeared hands pressed a rainbow of colors onto a banner reading "Million Mom March." For her, these imprints represent what's at stake in a battle for strict gun-safety standards and background checks for all firearms sales at gun shows.
"We get so complacent," said, Rodland, a board member of the state's chapter of the Million Mom March organization.
"We hear of another school shooting and we just say, `Oh, just another one.' Well, I'm outraged. I'm just tired of people having easy access to handguns."
Rodland's outrage joined a host of other voices at the Million Mom March rally yesterday at Seattle Center, where parents, politicians, teens and police spoke out not only on gun safety but on teen suicide, bullying and violence in schools. And just outside, others armed with their own passion protested against more gun restrictions.
Like chapters holding similar events across the country yesterday, the Washington state Million Mom March organization took the eve of Mother's Day to give a local focus to its national campaign. While those inside seemed aware of the protesters, they emphasized that stricter laws would not interfere with an individual's right to own guns.
"I think we're all talking about the same issue," said Mona Lee Locke, who chaired the event. "I have relatives who own guns. I think we're all about responsible gun ownership."
Perhaps some of that caution, she said, could have spared the life of Whitney Graves, who was shot by a playmate in 1996. The proposed Whitney Graves bill would make leaving a loaded firearm in an unsecured place where a child under 16 can and does gain possession a gross misdemeanor. And it would require firearms dealers to post signs about the law and offer safety devices such as trigger locks for sale. But supporters of the bill have been unsuccessful since 1997 in getting the bill passed.
"The bill never states that we are going to take away their guns," said 13-year-old Whitney Gill, a speaker and a friend of Graves'. "We're just trying to make it safe for children in a home with a gun."
Lori Holtmeyer, who lost her son to random gunfire a year ago, agreed. She said she also wants to see laws closing the loopholes on gun-show sales.
"The argument is that criminals will get their hands on guns no matter what," Holtmeyer said. "What does it hurt to go the extra mile and close those loopholes?"
Recent statistics show that the rate of firearms deaths nationally and countywide has declined. According to a Seattle-King County Public Health report, the county's firearm death rate in 1998 was 7.9 deaths per 100,000 population, down from 12.7 per 100,000 in 1993.
But outside the Center House, the site of the rally, Kathy Jackson had a different message. "It is very hard to think about people who have lost their children (to gunfire), but you have to realize there are thousands of people saved by armed citizens," she said.
The number of teen firearm deaths, calculated by the Million Mom March as 10 every day, is inflated by gang-related deaths, said Shirley Rheault, a spokeswoman for the state chapter of the Second Amendment Sisters. Just the presence of a gun deters crime and has saved 400,000 lives, she said.
