LEWISTON – The mother of a Maine National Guard soldier who used a shotgun to kill himself at age 18 is pressing state lawmakers to raise the minimum age for buying shotguns to 21.

“I will do whatever it takes to open people’s eyes to this and change the laws,” said Catherine Crowley, whose son Laurier “Larry” Belanger Jr. shot himself on May 21 with a gun he bought two days earlier.

Crowley of Lewiston has written letters to all 186 members of Maine’s State House, as well as Gov. John Baldacci, urging them to raise the minimum age for buying a shotgun to 21, the same age as for handguns.

Rep. Margaret Craven, D-Lewiston, said she has filed papers in Augusta for a bill that would raise the purchasing age to 21.

“She said she’s going to call it ‘The Laurier Belanger bill,”‘ Crowley said.

Sen. Ethan Strimling, D-Portland, said he also is considering proposing a waiting period for anyone under 21 to buy a shotgun.

Crowley said she believes that if her son had been too young to buy a gun, or if the law mandated a waiting period, “he would be sitting right here with me now.”

“I don’t understand how a kid can walk into Wal-Mart and walk out 20 minutes later with a shotgun. I don’t understand how this can be so,” she said.

Crowley said her son had seemed “his usual happy, make-everybody-laugh self” at a barbecue days before his death.

After his death, however, police learned Belanger had been despondent and told co-workers that he planned to kill himself. He left a suicide note that did not blame anyone, according to Lewiston police Lt. Paul Harmon.

A higher age limit or a waiting period might have been enough to keep her son from acting on his depression, Crowley said.

“Kids don’t stop and think that next week or next month things could be better,” she said. If they act on suicidal impulses, “there’s no second chance.”