Ryanne Elizabeth Mace was 19 years old when she, along with four other
students, was shot to death in her Ocean Sciences class in Cole Hall at
Northern Illinois University on February 14, 2008. The shooting spree
also injured 21 other students, some critically, before the murderer
killed himself as soon as campus police swarmed the lecture hall. The
gunman who perpetrated this horrific mass murder was someone with an
extensive, documented history of mental illness who nevertheless was able
to purchase his firearms legally.
Ryanne, an only child to her parents, Eric and Mary Kay, was their pride
and joy. She developed a variety of interests while growing up in
Carpentersville, Illinois. She loved reading and nature, studied French,
played violin and guitar, sang and knitted. She grew into a delightful
young woman with many talents who was extremely intelligent, hard working,
responsible, civic-minded, very funny, fun loving and a do-gooder who
wanted to help everybody. Ryanne was a sophomore majoring in Psychology;
her goal was to attain a Psy-D degree to become a counselor. She was
always the person to whom her friends came to pour out their problems; she
offered a comforting ear and sage advice. Had she met the NIU gunman at
some earlier time, she would have befriended him and tried to steer him to
the help he needed.
To honor Ryanne’s memory, her parents have researched the numerous
problems with our country’s gun laws and have begun pursuing ways to shore
up the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in hopes
that having fewer guns easily accessible to the mentally ill may help
prevent this type of tragedy from occurring in the future. NICS currently
(as of May 10, 2011) has in excess of 100,000 records of mentally ill
persons in Illinois missing from the database. Nationwide, there are more
than a million records of people – who are supposed to be, by existing
law, prohibited from legally purchasing guns – missing from NICS.
Background checks can be only as effective as the information entered into
the system.
The NIU gunman deprived (or perhaps, spared) his victims’ families of
seeking justice through the criminal court system. We’ll never hear the
reasons why he chose to do what he did. We’ll never get to make victim
impact statements letting him know what he’s taken from us. We only know
that our children, all unknown to their murderer, had never harmed him in
any way and should not have perished as a result of his rage.
When you read this, please also remember Catalina Garcia, Daniel
Parmenter, Gayle Dubowski and Julianna Gehant. Their bright lives and
promising futures were all cut short in the same incomprehensible act of
bloodshed. Many families, friends and loved ones grieve the loss of the
five innocents, as well as the NIU community’s innocence, killed on that
Valentine’s Day.
Thanks,
Mary Kay Mace