Indianapolis Anti-gun measure goes down in committee

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.