Did Indiana Republicans vote for challenger Richard Mourdock or against incumbent Richard Lugar in their primary election for a U.S. Senate seat?It’s hard to tell, because voters don’t have to give a reason.Paul Helmke doesn’t blame partisan political rhetoric for last month’s shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz.
He blames politicians.
“The refusal of our elected officials to treat gun violence seriously has led to more violence in this country, and that has got to stop,” said Helmke, president of the Washington-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, at an IPFW news conference.
After the Tucson attack and shootings of several police officers, including one in Indianapolis who later died, “to have no response from our elected officials either at the federal level or the state level is to me a dereliction of duty,” Helmke said.
Helmke, the mayor of Fort Wayne from 1988 through 1999, spoke later at University Community Conversation, a new program sponsored by IPFW’s College of Arts and Sciences.
At both appearances, he pleaded for the reinstatement of the 1994-2004 ban on high-capacity ammunition clips such as the one used in the Tucson shootings that killed six people and injured 14, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.
A bill limiting ammo magazines to 10 rounds has been introduced in the U.S. House, a sign that “Congress is waking up,” Helmke said. He wondered why the 65 co-sponsors of the measure included only one Hoosier, Rep. Andre Carson, D-7th.
“I want to hear why (other congressmen) think we need to have the 30-round magazine,” Helmke said at the Kettler Hall news conference.
A spokesman for Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-3rd, said Stutzman had no comment on Helmke’s remark.
At the University Community Conversation at Neff Hall, attended by about 50 people, Helmke said the bill needed support from Republicans and rural Democrats to gain traction.
“If Marlin Stutzman signed on to this, that would send a significant message. That would get headlines in D.C.,” he said.
However, he said, “this is not about Republicans versus Democrats. This is not about liberals versus conservatives. This is about how do we make it harder for dangerous people to own guns.”
The Jan. 8 Arizona massacre “points out just how weak our laws are,” Helmke said at the news conference. “The shooter in Tucson didn’t break a single law until he pulled the trigger the first time and put the first bullet in the congresswoman’s brain.
“He was too dangerous for his algebra class at his community college, but that’s not enough to put him on the prohibited purchaser list,” Helmke said of shooting suspect Jared Loughner. “He was somebody who was too unreliable for the military, but that’s not enough to keep him from buying a gun. It’s so easy to buy a gun in this country.”
Yet the suspect “wasn’t stopped by somebody else with a gun. … He was stopped when that magazine ran out of bullets,” Helmke said.
Helmke hopes lawmakers hear from constituents in favor of stronger gun laws.
“If that group of victims (in Tucson) doesn’t grab the heartstrings of the American public, I don’t know what is going to,” he said. The dead included a 9-year-old girl.
He fears “that bubble” around public officials “is going to grow larger and thicker” because of increased security measures in the wake of the shootings.
