College Democrats members met for a lecture by Paul Helmke, professor of practice at 7 p.m. in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Helmke discussed myths surrounding gun laws and the second amendment and presented possible legislative actions that could be taken by those who support gun regulation.
“A lot of us know Paul Helmke very well. He’s an amazing advocate for this issue,” IU Democrats president Hannah Miller said. “Also, he is a Republican and it shows that there is bipartisanship in this issue, and that it’s not just the left-wing people that care about gun control and stopping this gun violence.”
Helmke cited the tendency for gun issues to garner national attention in the wake of tragedies, but stressed that people die from gun violence every day. He said he advocates for gun control and regulation regardless of whether a tragedy is in the news.
“The real tragedy is not that this (gun violence) happens, but that we do nothing about it,” Helmke said. “That’s what really gets me angry. After Columbine ... there were votes at the national level — did nothing.”
Helmke also discussed the issue of concealed carry on college campuses.
“I came to this issue because when I was a mayor, there was a rise in crime in my city and my police department told me this was a law and order issue to them,” Helmke said. “It was too easy for bad people to get guns.”
There are three main myths surrounding gun control, Helmke said. First, he said some people think the second amendment says nothing can be done about gun control. His counter to this was that the second amendment has the word “regulated” in it.
The second myth is that gun control doesn’t work, and the third myth some people believe is that gun control is a career-damaging issue for politicians, he said.
Helmke brought up several possible actions those supporting gun control could push for in the government. He said the U.S. should strengthen criminal background checks and require all states to send their records for arrests and convictions to a federal database.
A student asked about whether a federal database would constitute an invasion of privacy, to which Helmke said these records are already public.
Background checks are an issue College Democrats Vice President Kegan Ferguson said the organization intends to pursue at the state level.
“I think going forward the college democrats are going to pushing candidates running for office around Indiana, whether it be governor, senator or House of Representatives, we’re going to be asking them if they would support background checks and a rigid background check system that would work,” Ferguson said.
Other suggestions Helmke offered were reducing the maximum number of bullets in magazine clips, making it more difficult to obtain certain kinds of guns and strengthening regulations on gun trafficking wherein people buy large quantities of guns and resell them privately.
His final point was that there needs to be better and more research on how regulation affects gun violence rates in the U.S..
“I always say I’m not anti-gun, but guns are a serious responsibility and a serious risk, so let’s be serious about who we allow to get guns,” Helmke said.
