Whitewashing gun control

We need a middle ground, some gun control is necessary. Bullshit! Read on.

By Evan Goodenow, 11 May 2009, News-Sentinel
Paul Helmke gets a little frustrated when he returns to Fort Wayne.
-There is so much I could have done with that lead in but it is no fun if they just give it to you.

“Nobody listens to you anymore,” Helmke joked during a recent informal question-and-answer session at The News-Sentinel. “So I went to (Washington) D.C., where nobody listens to me anymore.”
-The attempts to control gun and erase your rights did not go away, what changed was Americans are standing up and in large numbers. Try and buy a box of any caliber ammunition and you will see what I mean. Congress understands the message, we will fight. Face it, no one is hording ammunition because they trust congress. On a happy note, much of the ammunition shortages will be over by June. Stock up, when you can.

Such is the life of a former mayor in his hometown – Helmke served 1988-2000 – and a gun-control advocate in a nation with 280 million privately owned guns.
-I used to think I had enough but that changed, dunno why.

Yet that hasn’t stopped Helmke from talking. Since leaving politics, he’s become a national voice for gun control: July will mark his third year as president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
-Ok, so now you know what side he is on. I am on the other.

The job comes with a price. Helmke is often vilified by gun-rights advocates. When he suggests renewing the assault weapons ban to reduce killings with semiautomatic rifles or stricter monitoring of gun sales to keep them out of the hands of criminals, he is often accused of trying to ban or confiscate all guns.
-Nice attempt at playing the victim card but without some proof that so called assault rifles are responsible for the vase majority of all gun accidents, murders, and other gun related crimes we are not buying it. Maybe if you can prove they kill more Americans than cigarettes you would have better luck. Try for a nation wide ban on cigarettes and see how far you get with that. The people need protection

“You and Helmke don’t know what you’re talking about!!” wrote one angry reader responding to a Feb. 24 article in The News-Sentinel in which Helmke noted that Indiana’s gun laws require no gun safety training or limits on the number of guns purchased. “You anti-gunners won’t be happy until all guns are confiscated and Marxist views are shoved down the throats of freedom-loving people.”
-Kind of dramatic but essentially true, Americans understand we remain free only as long as we are willing to fight for those freedoms. We are closer to a civil war that I would have ever believed possible. Gun rights are just one measure, Americans are extremely distrustful of our government. Platitudes and promises will fool some but not all.

Opponents also link him to conspiracy theories.

“America is waking up to 9/11 as an inside job,” wrote one reader responding to the article. “You reporters haven’t been doing (your) job.”
-The most researched terrorist attack in history and a few idiots still think it was an inside job. I bet they still think obama is doing a great job and congress is working hard for the little man, what a bunch of morons.

The U.S. leads the world in gun deaths per year, with about 31,000 Americans killed in 2005, according to the Centers for Disease Control. About 55 percent of those deaths were suicides. Roughly 40 percent were homicides, and Indiana ranked 21st in the nation in gun deaths, according to the Violence Policy Center, which analyzed CDC statistics.

Yet Helmke said discussion of gun control frequently leads to hysterical responses from opponents invoking slippery-slope analogies and Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. Helmke said a lack of gun-control laws in post-World War I Germany helped fuel Hitler’s takeover, but try explaining that to gun-rights advocates.
-Each year, more than 50,000 people die from colorectal cancer. That has absolutely nothing to do with gun control but it does show that tossing out large numbers does get attention and that statistically gun deaths are lower than many naturally occuring deaths.

“Gun control is a topic that people don’t like to talk about in any sort of rational way,” he said, noting some favor outlawing all private gun ownership, while others say there should be no gun laws. Helmke favors a middle ground. He would limit how many guns people can buy at one time, ban sales of semiautomatic rifles and increase law oversight of gun sales.
-When I can trust the police to stop criminals from getting close enough to threaten me and congress to protect my rights, not waste money, obey the will of the people and to protect the borders I will get rid of all my guns except for a single shot low caliber pistol. As far now, I am buying the biggest lead thrower I can find and enough ammunition to handle, zombie and alien robot attacks at the same time.

Helmke said he was hired in part because of his centrist reputation as a Midwestern Republican. While elected three times, he ruffled feathers in his party by pushing for a revenue-raising local income tax and an annexation that expanded the city’s tax base.

It was also during his tenure as mayor that Helmke saw the devastation caused by gun violence in Fort Wayne in the 1990s, including 1997 when the city saw a record 42 homicides. His support for gun control led him to meet Brady Center co-founder James Brady, the press secretary to President Ronald Reagan who was shot in the head and paralyzed during the 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan.
-He almost got it right, gun deaths are high and they need to be stopped. When he is smart enough to figure out how to stop criminals from plying their trade he might be able to stop a few people from packing heat. We have tried thousands of gun restrictions; lets try open carry and see if that drops those high crime rates.

Brady helped get a law passed requiring federal background checks for sales by gun dealers and an assault-weapons ban from 1994 to 2003. Nonetheless, Helmke admits it’s been frustrating trying to get laws passed to keep criminals from obtaining guns through thefts, private sales, straw purchases or from corrupt gun dealers. Some 40 percent of all gun purchases have no background checks because they’re done by private sellers or at gun shows, and Helmke said states, including Indiana, rarely report mentally ill gun owners to the federal government.
-I will probably never buy and register another gun, order a gun magazine or join a gun rights group. Nothing with my name on it will link me to guns ever again, those things are dangerous. Call me paranoid but we dangerous right wing extremists do not trust big brother and if they outlaw guns tomorrow and search my place first, I will have another gun before they clear my driveway. All their plans sound harmless but until some proof is offered that shows all the nations that have already banned guns are better off then I suggest each of you plan to protect what you own and to get more if you need them.

“All of our gun laws are basically set with the presumption that we don’t want to do anything to make it hard for anybody to get a gun,” Helmke said. “People always say there are all these laws on the books. There aren’t any laws on the books.”
-We do need more laws, lets pass some anti crime bills and laws against drugs, that will help control both (sarcasm)

While it’s been an uphill battle, Helmke said he’ll continue to push for reasonable laws that don’t infringe on the Second Amendment.
-Here is a tip, until we see politicians perform to our expectations you are wasting your time.

“I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t think we could make progress,” he said. “Politicians need to show a little courage on this stuff, and they’re not willing to.”
-True, show courage. It is easy, stop lying, stealing and erasing our rights and you do not need to fear the 80 million gun owners building vast arsenals.

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