WASHINGTON, Maine — The parents of a Portland homicide victim who are citizen sponsors of a proposed 2016 ballot measure that would require background checks for nearly all firearms sales in Maine got to shake President Barack Obama’s hand Tuesday after he talked about measures he’s taking in an effort to improve gun safety.
“We’re very excited about the president’s plans,” said Judi Richardson of South Portland by phone from the nation’s capital. “Our Congress has failed us. The president is standing up and doing something.”
Judi and Wayne Richardson were part of a group of 40 people victimized by gun violence who met with the president after he spoke in the East Room about new gun safety measures he plans to implement through executive orders.
Obama’s plan would require certain private gun sellers who advertise or rent tables at gun shows to become licensed dealers and conduct background checks on buyers.
“We still have that loophole for a private seller,” Richardson said. “The president’s executives narrow the loophole but doesn’t close it. Our initiative will close the loophole. This is what happened in our daughter’s case.”
The couple’s daughter, Darien Richardson, was shot with a .45-caliber pistol — which police have not been able to trace — while she slept in her Portland apartment in January 2010.
“She spent 20 days in the hospital and later died from complications caused by her injuries,” a joint news release from Maine Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety about Tuesday’s meeting states.
Her parents are collecting signatures to get a 2016 referendum before voters to make background checks a part of all gun sales in Maine with the exception of those involving family members.
Criminal background checks are 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.
Darien Richardson’s homicide has never been solved and investigators have been unable to track the weapon, which originally was purchased from a dealer in 2008 but was resold, Portland police Assistant Chief Vernon Malloch said in October.
“The police could not trace the gun because it was later sold at a gun show without a background check,” the news release states.
The gun is connected to two Portland homicides that occurred a month apart, Malloch said.
Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap said Monday that 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 Feb. 1 to turn in the 61,123 signatures needed to put the question before residents this fall.
“We’re still moving forward” with the petition, Richardson said. “We’re almost there. It looks like we’re going to have more [signatures] than required.”