Eleven years ago, Greenpoint resident Nicole DuFresne was killed during a Lower East Side mugging after she sarcastically asked the gunman who had pistol-whipped her fiancé, "What are you going to do, shoot us next?" But even though the 19-year-old shooter was convicted and is currently serving a life sentence, DuFresne's fiancé doesn't feel that justice has been fully served. "It should have been harder for him to get the gun. It should be harder now," Jeffrey Sparks wrote on Facebook.

DuFresne, Sparks and a few other friends had just left Max Fish, after the opening night party for Rockwood Music Hall, where DuFresne had just started waitressing while also working on playwriting and acting. On Clinton Street near Rivington, they ran into a group who demanded their money. One teen struck Sparks in the head with a gun. Sparks told the NY Times at the time:

"Nicole was asking me if I was all right," he said. The other robber stepped forward and apologized, Mr. Sparks said. "He's like, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, it doesn't have to be like this, we just need some money.' I said, 'Come on, let's just go,' and started to walk down the sidewalk. I thought Nicole was behind me, but she wasn't.

"They must have grabbed for Mary Jane's purse," he said, referring to Ms. duFresne's old friend and fellow actress and playwright, Mary Jane Gibson, who was there with her boyfriend. Mr. Sparks was farther up the block when Ms. duFresne confronted the attackers. The police said she asked the men something to the effect of, "What are you going to do, shoot us next?"

"I don't know if she was going off on the guy or what," Mr. Sparks said. "I heard one shot. Nicole was lying on the street on her back."

A few days later, Rudy Fleming was arrested; the 19-year-old had been on parole for taking a gun to his high school on Staten island and pointing it at a school security officer.

It also turned out that Fleming and his friends had been on a "mugging spree," and had pistol-whipped another teen into giving them his leather jacket. The group apparently believed that DuFresne, Sparks and their companions would be "easy marks".

Fleming was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2006. After the conviction, Sparks defended his fiancée's actions, "It makes it sound like she was asking for it. She didn't mean, 'I dare you to shoot me. She meant, 'It would be smart if you stopped pointing the gun at me so I can turn around and walk away and you can walk away.'"

In the years since, Sparks has moved to Germany. He explained in his Facebook post that while he appreciated the sympathy he received from other New Yorkers and tried to rebuild his life, "I felt like I needed to go somewhere far, far away, where nobody knew the story. A place where I could start over again and be perceived as a normal person by people around me, rather than 'that guy'."

He also expressed empathy for Fleming: "He was a teenager from a poor neighborhood who was understandably frustrated with his environment. Neither he nor most of his friends with him at the time had ever even committed a mugging. It was his first time robbing anyone and he was nervous." But Sparks has no patience for the gun industry that shuns any kind of gun control measures: "The black market is good business for the gun makers. And both they and the National Rifle Association know that."

Here is Sparks' moving statement in full:

Today marks the eleventh anniversary of the day that a teenaged kid pointed his gun at Nicole Dufresne, my best friend, my soul mate, my wife, pulled the trigger, and put a single bullet through her chest. I knelt beside her in the street and begged her to hold on, to stay with me, stay with her family. She tried hard. But after just a couple of minutes she let go her last breath, and along with it went any vision of a future I had. There would be no children. There would be no home. Instead there would be a dozen photographers and reporters waiting for me at every turn, as the search for her killer proceeded, and the story of her murder made its way into news outlets around the country.

Thankfully most people reading this will not know how this feels, or be able to fathom the emotional scars left by such an experience. Yet every single year in the United States, over thirty thousand people die by bullets — about the same number as those who die in car accidents. Death by bullet is the second leading way to die for American young people.
The death of any person, by any means, becomes a major issue in the lives of the people who love and lose them. Sudden, unexpected deaths such as accidents leave different scars than those that are anticipated. And murder has its own deep, bitter brand of grief. Murder isn’t an accident. It’s not a disease. It’s a decision.

A popular slogan used by many American advocates for the constitutionally guaranteed right to own guns is, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” I absolutely agree. People murder other people by many different means. A simple hammer can be used to fracture a skull. A car intended for transportation can be used to run a person over. A gun is no different in this sense.

But guns are different in some key ways. Guns are by design, the most efficient tools to use to commit murder. And unlike cars, guns are not strictly regulated. Guns purchased legally are easy to convert to the black market.

Selling a stolen car without having it traced back to the thief is a tricky business, because every car in the US is given a unique identification number, which has to be removed and replaced with a counterfeit number, that is cloned from a legal car that is the same make and model of the stolen car. More often than not, stolen cars are completely dismantled and sold as parts, rather than undertaking that more complicated approach.

But all it takes to render a gun untraceable is a simple metal file used to remove the serial number. There is no national registry of gun serial numbers. The gun used to murder my wife was a Brazilian made Taurus .357 Magnum. It was legally imported to the US and initially legally sold. Eventually someone committed the crime of selling it on the black market after the serial number was scratched off. With the gun rendered untraceable there was no means of holding any of the criminal gun traders accountable, thus assuring the continued steady flow of weapons into the hands of other criminals. But Taurus still made the same profit from the sale of that gun as they did on every other gun, properly licensed, and owned by law abiding citizens. The black market is good business for the gun makers. And both they and the National Rifle Association know that.

Nicole’s killer was identified by a friend of his who saw the story on TV. He was captured, convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. After the trial I did my best to move on and start a new life. Of course it was very difficult. New Yorkers were very kind to me when they recognised me, which happened often for years after. I got a great new job and moved into the neighbourhood where Nicole had most wanted to live. I made wonderful new friends who gave me so much support. But I had a huge hole… a profound emptiness that I did my best to hide. And eventually I felt like I needed to go somewhere far, far away, where nobody knew the story. A place where I could start over again and be perceived as a normal person by people around me, rather than “that guy”. The place I chose was Berlin. That was six years ago and still to this day most people there don’t know my story. And I like it that way.

But the subject of gun regulation in the US has weighed more and more heavily on my mind in recent years, with mass shootings occurring on a weekly basis, and an average of 30 gun murders every single day, even though the overall rate of violent crime has been dropping for years. In just this first month of 2016, there have already been five mass shootings and over 700 gun murders, with 31 of the victims being children. That’s a lot of broken hearts and homes. And given that 2016 is a major election year, I feel like those of us who walk through life with huge invisible holes in our hearts because of gun violence, need to be publicly outspoken and active in working to elect representatives who will work to enact truly effective regulations to reduce gun violence.

The person who murdered my wife was not a career criminal. He was a teenager from a poor neighborhood who was understandably frustrated with his environment. Neither he nor most of his friends with him at the time had ever even committed a mugging. It was his first time robbing anyone and he was nervous. He was definitely not the smartest kid on the block. Yet because gun regulations so facilitate the black market, he was able to obtain an untraceable handgun. Therefore it only took one moment of really bad judgement to take Nicole’s life, send himself to prison for life, and shatter the hearts and dreams of an entire extended family. It should have been harder for him to get the gun. It should be harder now.

I grew up shooting guns competitively in the midst of the gun culture of the south. I have no problem with the 2nd Amendment or the abstract idea of citizens being allowed to own guns. The vast majority of people who own guns handle them safely and never use them for crime. As one of those citizens, what I want in a nutshell is for guns to be regulated similarly to cars. Generally legislation aimed at increasing public safety on the roads is viewed as positive. Legislation that does the same for guns should also be viewed positively, by both gun owners and others alike. It’s time for a citizen lobby to outspend and outmanoeuvre the NRA in favour of the common sense gun laws America needs.

Republicans have steadfastly stood in the way of reasonable gun control for decades.