PORTLAND, Maine — Grieving parents of a woman who was shot and killed by someone with a handgun purchased in what police called Portland’s black market want criminal background checks done as part of nearly every gun sale in Maine and are trying to get the measure before voters.
Judi and Wayne Richardson’s daughter, Darien Richardson, was shot with .45-caliber pistol while she slept in her Portland apartment in January 2010 in a homicide case that has never been solved, according to police.
Her parents are citizen sponsors of a proposed 2016 ballot measure to make background checks part of all gun sales in Maine with the exception of those involving family members, Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap confirmed Thursday.
Criminal background checks are currently required by the federal government for gun sales at licensed gun shops and retailers in Maine, but the law has a loophole that allows private sales to go forward without them.
The couple, supported by Maine Moms Demand Action, which describes itself as a nonpartisan movement of Americans demanding reasonable solutions to gun violence, have until Jan. 22 to turn in the 61,123 signatures needed to put the question before residents next November.
“We can save lives by closing the deadly loophole in Maine law that makes it far too easy for criminals, domestic abusers and other dangerous people to get their hands on guns without any background check at all,” Judi Richardson said in a Maine Moms Demand Action press release.
The proposed Maine initiative would require an unlicensed seller to meet the buyer and complete the sale at a licensed gun dealer, who would run the background check. The proposed law would allow family members to sell to each other without a background check.
Portland Police Assistant Chief Vernon Malloch has said investigators traced the gun used to kill Richardson, and another Portlander in a separate case a month later, but reached a dead end.
Malloch said Portland police — working with agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — were able to pinpoint the original 2008 sale of the gun, but lost track of the weapon after the first owner resold it.
“He sold it at a gun show sometime later to a person that he did not identify, with no records check or criminal history check done,” Malloch said. “That’s where the trail ends with that gun, a gun that has now been used to kill two Portland residents.”
People who support the measure say criminals and others who want to avoid having their backgrounds checked currently go to gun shows, or purchase through classified ads or from family or friends.
Several years ago the organizers of the annual Bangor Gun Show, which is in its 38th year, began requiring gun buyers to get a background check through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, even though private sales are exempt.
“Every gun that goes out the door goes through a NICS check,” said Charles Rumsey, who, along with his wife, has organized the Bangor show since 1994.
Any licensed gun shop operator who participates in a gun show must still run a background check on gun sales, but smaller private collectors who set up tables aren’t required to do so. However, the practice in recent years is for larger dealers to offer free background checks to those sellers.
Rumsey said he has concerns with the proposed measure because it would put undue burden on close friends or neighbors trading or selling guns to each other, and he expects there would be an added fee to utilize an established gun shop’s NICS system.
“You wind up just putting honest people through an unneeded process,” Rumsey said. “I don’t want to have to go around and pay for someone to do that. I don’t see any use for that.”
The national Moms Demand Action group also condemned the Maine Legislature’s approval of LD 652, a bill that became law Thursday allowing legal firearm owners to carry concealed, loaded handguns in public or in their vehicle without a permit or any safety training.
“Supporting the Second Amendment goes hand in hand with the responsibility to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people,” Bucksport police Chief Sean Geagan, another citizen sponsor of the ballot measure, said in the released statement. “While no law can prevent every tragedy, this ballot measure will help keep Mainers safe.”
The other citizen sponsors are Laurie Fogelman, a domestic violence prevention advocate; Christopher Dickens, a father and gun owner from Blue Hill; and Amy Fiorilli, a mom from Otis.
The Richardsons, who in 2013 posted a $10,000 reward for information to help them find the masked intruder who broke into their daughter’s bedroom and shot her, also testified before Congress in 2013 advocating for the mandatory background checks nationwide.
“In states that require criminal background checks on all handgun sales, the rates of law enforcement gun homicide, domestic violence homicide and gun suicides drop dramatically,” Geagan said in the press release.
A Portland kickoff event for the campaign starts at 9 a.m. Saturday at the First Parish Portland Unitarian Universalist at 425 Congress St., and an office opening and kickoff event in Ellsworth is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at 20 Oak St.
Petitioners were already on the streets in Bangor on Thursday.
BDN writer Seth Koenig contributed to this report.