Helmke wants gun control issue ‘solved' (barf alert)

[Hazcat]

Helmke wants gun control issue ‘solved'
Favors rules for responsible owners
By Kelly SoderlundThe Journal GazetteAdvertisement

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Paul Helmke’s mind is filled with stories about gun violence.

The former Fort Wayne mayor can talk about the first time he struggled with the idea of guns, when as a North Side High School student he turned on the news to find a friend from grade school had been accidentally shot in the back. The current president of the non-profit Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence talks about a Fort Wayne police recruit killed in 1987 by a training officer because he didn’t know the gun was loaded.

That happened one month before Helmke took office in 1988, but Helmke remembers that after he became mayor, a minister’s son was shot in the head in a drive-by while waiting outside a YMCA to be picked up from piano lessons. He can speak about a Chicago mother whose 9-year-old daughter was killed at a birthday party by someone who drove by and sprayed the house with bullets.

“The stories are heart-wrenching, and it’s clear that we have a problem,” Helmke said.

Helmke was at Indiana Tech in front of nearly 200 people Thursday night to share those stories and some theories on how the nation’s current gun control laws can be changed. He’s been president of the Brady campaign since 2006. The organization is named after President Reagan’s press secretary Jim Brady, who was shot and paralyzed during an assassination attempt on the president in 1981.

If the federal government would follow about four items on the Brady campaign’s agenda, Helmke thinks this country would see a decrease in gun violence within three years. Helmke said he’s not pro-gun and he’s not anti-gun, but he is for establishing rules so that guns can be owned by responsible people.

“It doesn’t make sense that it’s harder to buy Sudafed than it is to buy a gun,” Helmke said.

Helmke wants to implement more effective background checks for gun buyers; prohibit the sale of certain weapons to the general public; regulate the trafficking of illegal guns; and restrict the number of guns one person can buy at one time.

He encouraged those in the audience to talk with their legislators and elected officials and push them to move on these ideas.

“I don’t want to stay in this job forever,” Helmke said. “I want to get this problem solved.”

ksoderlund@jg.net

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http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080307/LOCAL/803070333/-1/LOCAL07

This is the ENEMY that we have to be prepraded to answer!

[tombogan03884]

Then he should quit stirring it up !

[DDMac]

I hope McCain isn't on his speed-dial.  Mac.