What measure you might ask? Given Indiana has strong preemption.
Well... if passed by the City-Council this measure would... tell the Statehouse (the reps specifically) and others via memo that the City-Council wants gun control.
And the gun control that one man Zach Adamson (D-17)
is pushing is a real moon-shot.
Proposal 112 would ask for all sorts of AWB, private sale, and magazine bans.
And today the Community Affairs Committee met to talk about
Proposal 112
Which is as I said is pretty much: "Guns are bad, and the Indiana
state house should ban assault weapons, hi cap magazines, ban private sales,
and not support national reciprocity
And this evening.... the council debated, took in public
statements, and voted on it.
It started with Zach Adamson (D-17) a grandstanding
fellow who read his resolution and
bragged about being in DC for a "die-in"
He did the standard litany of "weapons of war" and
"designed to kill" and went
with how assault weapons are specifically to mow down lots of people. But would not define /what/ caused it.
Maybe about 40% of the seats were full and there was at
least a dozen gun control supporters there. They were mostly white, almost entirely
female. Meanwhile it turns out there
were at last three pro gun people in attendance (and in fairness we were all
white bearded 30's to 40's)
There was a lot of finger snapping and murmuring in support
on their part.
Zach Adamson was
joined by two councilmen who were not on the commit and thus I did not get
their names. Both were vocal supporters
of the resolution. The older fellow who
was African American was very much on background checks and having mental health
component to a screening. His statements
did not indicate he was as hard core anti-gun as the others.
The other fellow, a younger white man who lounged back in a stance that made it
look like he wanted to put a foot on the table was more bellicose. He was the biggest one going "We need to
do Something!" He was particularly
angry at comments about how to define an Assault Weapon.
He would going on about how debate would bog down on
"defining what an assault weapon is"
and nothing would pass. Nevermind
that to tell the police what is and isn't illegal to own it has to be defined.
Rather quickly it went to public comments. Forgive me as I was taking notes by hands and
wasn't able to names and good notes.
(Each speaker had 2 minutes)
Surprisingly despite the anti-gun folks having a large
number of people they only had 6
speakers.
And this includes that the first three were high school students. They did the bit about that their movement
won't stop, and their needing to feel safe and so on.
Then it came to a nurse who also gave an anti gun position and talked about the
trauma she saw.
Next was a pro-gun fellow. A vet, he was
passionate and maybe not as smooth as he
could have been and he pushed pass time.
But he did point out how assault weapons are defined. How much rifles of
any type are used in crimes. That the overall
crime rate had been doing down, that the Clinton AWB was ineffective, and that
the UK was now going after knives.
Next game another pro-gun person that pointed out about violence and that the
resolution did not define anything and the myth of the "high
capacity" gun and the arbitrary nation.
Then... well I talked. I pointed out the illogic of how Zach was
against national reciprocity despite Indiana already having universal
reciprocity (we will accept any state or country's permit). So I asked if he
was against Hoosiers being able to carry in other states or if he wanted to amend
that part of Indiana state law.
I also pointed out that despite him listing Santa Fe in his list of atrocities,
that killing took place with a shotgun and a revolver and killed 10Despite him
including that incident and him stating that assault rifles are uniquely evil.
I then went into how the resolution is unhelpful because it
doesn't /define/ what it wants to ban. And that previous bans focused on cosmetic and
ergonomic features and that even from the gun control standpoint if their goal
was to focus on the lethality...
Then came an anti-gun person and her argument was about
background checks being stronger and pointed out how she is a prohibited person
because she sees a therapist. Which...
isn't quite right. She also said that
her children come home every day crying and scared for their lives afraid
they'll get shot.
Last was an older woman who was in the Air force and had a marksmanship badge.
And all about the guns she had in 4H teaching her kids on hunting. And her thing was "military style"
and how the 223 (not that she named the caliber) was too powerful and caused so
much extra death.
Then it went back to the council committee.
Again was the "spray of gunfire"
And Zach went on about how the ergonomics of an assault
weapon aren't "just cosmetic"
and that how slower fire was more accurate and thus more lethal.
There was no more public comment but one can see that he's making the argument
that would cover even more guns...
Again was a "Why do this?" rhetorical question
with them going on about a demand to "Do something" push.
The non-voting white councilman waved the bloody shirt by talking about a teenage
girl that was shot about 12 times and how "she doesn't care how an assault
rifle is defined", and went on against "arguing over semantics"
and "can't do anything over than bicker over what an AR is".
The black non voting councilman did the "we pass laws to regulate human behavior"
and used the analogy of "gun laws aren't pointless even though people violate
them, because we have traffic laws and people violate those."
and his example was speed limits.
Edit: Interestingly I think he's William Oliver D-9 the sponsor of the bill. So goes to show as he was far calmer about this than Zach was)
Where heck it's a form of /protest/ when
a large group of cars do the speedlimit on a highway. Especially one with the double nickel.
But he went back to his zone on how he wanted background
checks, and bemoaned about how whenever there's a murder people spot warning
signs in retrospect.
Which... given that
many of the recent killers have been people who /should/ have failed their NCIS
check if not for government incompetence.
There was also a comment about people buying guns in the
parking lot of the Indy 15000 gun show.
It turns out that Zach
/hates/ preemption. He railed against the statehouse taking power
for itself and limited what the
municipality could do.
He also went on about how congress made it legal to own
"tools that can only kill mass amounts of people"
And on the "fetish with guns is out of control"
Then came one councilman who had been silent until now.
Brian Mowers (R-25) actually gave a pro-gun speech about how
pointless this was and described how the NFA process was to get actual machine
guns. (he was a bit incorrect in that
the ATF doesn't have to be informed what room you store the gun in, but you
/do/ have to tell the ATF if you plan to cross state lines with it).
He also pointed out that if we go with "weapons of violence" then
golf clubs would count as would knives
and that a resolution that can't even define what it wants to make illegal
is pointless.
Marilyn Pfisterer (R-15) then spoke and was cagy. She also said this was pointless saying it
was a "waste of paper" but
encourage "both sides" to go to their state reps and congress and
lobby them and put their "passion to them"
And then.... the
chair of the committee Frank
Mascari (D-21) literally pulled out his pink carry permit and explained
what it was. And did a bit of a "gun
ower but" and pointed out that many
other people on the committee had permits as did people in the audience. And then went onto the "do
something" bandwagon.
Then came the vote.
Shockingly. The
proposal failed 3-2.
Key reason? Well....
here's the list of people on the committee:
Chair: Frank Mascari (D-21)
Zach Adamson (D-17)
Jason Holliday (R-20)
Blake Johnson (D-12)
Brian Mowery (R-25)
Marilyn Pfisterer (R-15)
Christine Scales (D-3)
Neither Christine Scales (D-3) nor Blake Johnson (D-12) attended.
And it was a party-line vote.
Zach Adamson (D-17) and Frank Mascari (D-21) voted for it.
Jason Holliday (R-20), Brian Mowery (R-25), and Marilyn
Pfisterer (R-15) voted against.
So I'm pretty sure that Zach is not happy with Scales or Johnson
Interestingly immediately after the vote about 80% of the
anti gun folks picked up their signs (which they only waved a bit at the start)
and marched out.
What makes that /especially/ interesting
is that the order was goofed There were two proposals to be talked about
in this session, one the gun control, and another about " a study
commission on gaps and disparities in providing social services in Marion
County".
It looked like the gun control one was going to be first on the schedule but
for some reason the social services one
was first. And at least 6 of the gun
control folks were taking pictures of the rather wonkish presentation on the
social services and cross program efficiencies and they did this for like the
full half hour that very nitty-gritty presentation (which had no public questions)
took.
(It also passed 4-1)
And yet... the minute
it turned out that the gun control proposal went down.
They left. One even screamed and obscenity
in the hall I think it was a "Fuck guns!"
Zach was also not happy, but took in stride and pledged that
he would write memos on his own if he didn't get it but that he'd be back with
another resolution.
Which was really cross purpose for them because for one Jason Holliday (R-20)
who had also been largely silent explained why he voted no.
He wanted something that was comprehensive and would have mental health and
background check work, but he did not
support anything that would have "punitive
action"
Zach went onto this and said that he was going to schedule a
meeting with Holliday to see if he could get something, even if it was a piecemeal approach of
having like a dozen of these resolutions in little bits.
There were other bits of like Pfisterer and Mascari talking of their votes and city-council
strategy that really... hurt the gun control folks to just leave. Meanwhile the gun rights folks (all three of
us) stayed.
Then it adjourned.
And it turns out that the gaggle of gun control advocates were just... down the
hall talking with each other. And then
some did leave and there was a "well we know who the NRA buys, and they
don't care about the children!"
So... it's a bit
surprising that this went down.
Probably a bit of a fluke given 2 of the 7 members of the Community
Affairs Committee didn't show up.
Zach
Adamson will be back and push this again. And I'm sure next time he'll try to twist
more arms to make sure he has the votes.
(Though that he didn't do this given this resolution has been his baby since
April)
Still, that he couldn't even get his symbolic
resolution out of committee has to hurt.
So for now I'm quite amused.
And tomorrow I'll write to Pfisterer, Holliday, and Mowery
You might want too as well.