Friday, January 22, 2010

Mayor Greg Ballard and Frank Straub

Indystar.com reports on the appointment of Dr. Frank Straub as Public Safety Director by Indianapolis mayor Greg Ballard . We discussed this when the appointment was first announced. Now the City Council will vote to approve it.

The notion that a new public safety director from the East Coast has come here to disarm law-abiding Indianapolis residents certainly comes as news to Mayor Greg Ballard, who appointed him.

The same reaction would appear to characterize the City-County Council, which is scheduled to vote Feb. 1 on whether to confirm Frank Straub.

In typical fashion, the opponents of gun control have warped this situation beyond recognition. In an attempt to appease the gun folks, Straub clarified his earlier statement that there are too many guns in Indiana.

Straub has since offered clarification, saying he begrudges only criminals with illegal weapons and has no quarrel with law-abiding people owning all the guns they can legally procure.

"No quarrel with law-abiding people," I hope they heard that on the City Council because Indianapolis desperately needs help, the entire state of Indiana does.

As Straub's predecessor, Scott Newman, has pointed out, Indiana's lack of limits on the number of guns that can be legally bought at one time has made the state a prime source for illicit resale by "straw purchasers." Bad guys come here from other states to load up.

Loose laws are trouble enough. Lax enforcement makes matters worse. An investigation by The Star last fall turned up hundreds of cases in which State Police approved handgun permits for persons whose records of violence disqualified them under the law.

I keep hearing all that's wrong with the one-gun-a-month rule, but isn't the prospect of someone with a straw buyer in Indiana coming over to load up the trunk of the car worse? I say yes. What's your opinion?

And don't you think it's about time some improvements were made in the issuing of gun permits. The argument I keep hearing is that the number of incidents is nothing compared to the total number of permits. One reason I find that to be misleading is that only the worst incidents make the news or the statistics. You'd have to somehow include all the less grave offenses in order to have a proper percentage. But, even so, claiming the percentage is so low we shouldn't worry about it is a mistake when we could easily improve the situation.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

4 comments:

  1. As Straub's predecessor, Scott Newman, has pointed out, Indiana's lack of limits on the number of guns that can be legally bought at one time has made the state a prime source for illicit resale by "straw purchasers."

    Perhaps Mr. Newman would care to explain how Indiana's being one of 46 states that don't ration the 2nd Amendment rights of citizens makes the state a "prime source."

    If he manages that, perhaps he would like to explain how Virginia, which does have such a law, is constantly denigrated by the anti-gun crowd as another of the "prime source" states.

    Any attempts on his part to explain those two "inconvenient truths" would be a great deal of fun, I'd wager.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You'd have to somehow include all the less grave offenses in order to have a proper percentage.

    And yet even when we show you the raw numbers (TX DPS for example) proving that we're talking about a fraction of one percent you still complain that we're not law-abiding enough as a group.

    I love how the anti's claim that the states with "lax" gun laws are a "prime source" for guns used in crimes in other states, yet if we look at violent crime data the "lax" state is almost always the one with a lower crime rate.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Indiana's gun laws need help? Look Sparky, I know you're not from here and all, but last time I checked our rate of violent crime was like, half that of Chicago, which has some pretty serious gun control.

    Our laws seem to be working just fine - we can even carry guns in bars here, and yet you don't hear about blood soaked shootouts every week...except for Pacers' players.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Straub has since offered clarification, saying he begrudges only criminals with illegal weapons and has no quarrel with law-abiding people owning all the guns they can legally procure."

    Of course Straub's goal is to continually make it harder to legally procure guns.

    ReplyDelete