This Week

MOM POWER

(i

5/12
2001

Cover Story

from page 7

So Margolis-Baum volunteered to
help mobilize the Jewish community.
She mailed information on the march
to every Orthodox, Conservative and
Reform congregation in the Detroit
area: While taking part in a presenta-
tion on the march to the Jewish
Community Council board, Margolis-
Baum met volunteer Amy Pines of
Birmingham, also there in hopes of
informing the organization of reasons
to sanction the march.
David Gad-Harf, Council executive
director, attended the speech and says
he was struck by statistics about how
many young children are killed each
day with guns.
Gun violence is an issue that seems
to have moved many mothers who
otherwise might not have had much
social action affiliation — like Pines.
Amy Pines and her son Noah, 2.
Gad-Harf described Pines as "some-
one fairly uninvolved in Jewish con-
Participants In The
gregational life who was turned on to
the issue of gun safety as related to
Cooling off or waiting period and
children." She took it upon herself to
background checks for gun pur-
inform the Jewish community without
chasers
any other experience in community
organizing. After her presentation, the
Licensing of all handgun owners
Council board endorsed participation
in the march, and was encouraged to
mobilize the Jewish community.
Although termed a march for
mothers, others are traveling to
Washington with their children. Gad-
Harf will participate with other men,
joining the march with his wife,
Nancy. "I will be going as a parent
and a citizen, not as an official, repre-
senting any organization," he says.
Pines and Margolis-Baum made
other presentations, including one at
the National Council of Jewish
Women/Greater Detroit Section.
Under the direction of NCJW Detroit
State Public Affairs Chair Judy
Rosenberg, the organization has taken
-on the role of community liaison for
_Michigan Jews interested in participat-
ing in the march. The job included
helping with travel arrangements.
Jan Schneiderman, national president
of . the NCJW, says the group as a whole
Ls proud to endorse the Million Mom
March. "For too long, Congress has lis-
tened to a loud minority who have
denied every piece of sensible gun-con-
trol legislation. It is our fervent hope
that this Mother's Day march will serve
as a wakeup call to legislators around the
country that a majority of Americans
insist on action to control guns."
In literature published by NCJW,
the names of Jonesboro, Stockton,
Paducah, Pearl and Edinboro are listed.
Then the text ponders if what hap-
pened in these places has become so

commonplace that most have forgotten
them as towns where school children
were gunned down, in most cases by
classmates.

Birth Of The March

The Million Mom March was con-
ceived by a woman in Short Hills, N.J.,
after she viewed horrifying news footage
of the aftermath of the North Valley
Jewish Community Center day camp
shooting near Los Angeles last summer.
Donna Dees-Thomases describes
watching "images of terrified children
being led in a line from the carnage
that had just taken place inside." She
says it frightened her to think "some-
one so criminally ill as the man who
entered that building had such easy
access to guns."

Within a week, she applied for a
permit to march on the Mall in
Washington, D.C., igniting her plan
for a national project.
From a meeting of 100 founding
mothers on Labor Day 1999, the
group grew to national proportions. A
mother of two, Dees-Thomases,
explains: "If we mothers can make
babies in nine months, surely
Congress can pass together gun laws
to protect our babies in that same
amount of time.
"For too long, we have ignored the
gun-violence epidemic because it was
always in somebody else's back yard."
For Michiganians, the Mount
Morris Township killing of 6-year-old
Kayla Rolland at Buell Elementary
School on Feb. 29 brought the gun

Million Mom March Endorse:

. Registration of a ll handguns
• Requiring manufacturers to child-
proof all handguns with safety
locks

• Limiting purchases to one hand-
gun per month
• Having better enforcement of cur-
rent gun laws.

violence close to home.
For coordinating the march, Michigan
has been divided into areas with offices in
Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti, Brighton,
Detroit, East Metro Detroit, Grand
Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Midland,
Muskegon and West Metro Detroit.
Lori Mizzi-Spillane of Troy,
regional co-coordinator for West
Metro Detroit, says that one million
people have- signed up to participate
in Washington, including 3,000
marchers from Michigan. "However,
that was before Oprah," she says,
referring to the television program's
airing of reasons to march.
"From the Jewish community, the
support is disproportionate," Mizzi-
Spillane says. A high percentage of
Jews are marching and "donations
have come predominately from the
Jewish community."
Surprisingly, Dees-Thomases says,
"Plenty of gun owners are marching
with us."
According to the Million Mom
March literature, that's despite the
pro-guns stance of the National Rifle
Association. The NRA is on record as
opposing a bill making it illegal to
leave a loaded rifle unattended in an
open car and opposed to adding
childproof safety locks on guns. It

MOM POWER

on page 12