John Hamilton is Mayor of Bloomington. This week, he had a heartfelt, frustrated–and frustrating–op ed in the New York Times.
Hamilton recounted two recent events from his city: an “open carry” parent swaggering around a municipal swimming pool, terrifying other parents; and a float in the annual Fourth of July parade “featuring armed men from a private firearms training center with military-style machine guns held at the ready, ammunition belts attached, atop a pickup truck.”
Both incidents generated unease and concern; both prompted calls for the Mayor to “do something” to ensure citizen safety. But, as Hamilton wrote, his inability to do anything–no matter how minor–has been assured by Mike Pence and Indiana’s legislature.
This is all happening in Indiana, with a governor, Mike Pence, who has long fought against any reasonable restrictions on guns. His extreme views on this, and other issues, are apparently one reason Donald J. Trump chose him as his running mate. The nation as a whole will now get a better look at the kind of attitude on gun laws that has earned Governor Pence an A rating from the National Rifle Association — and has made it harder for me to do what my constituents want when it comes to making them safe.
As Hamilton points out, his constituents aren’t anti-guns, or anti- Second Amendment.
They just don’t want handguns carried around at their public pools. They don’t want machine guns in their parades. Nor does my Police Department. Nor do I.
And in fact, my city used to have reasonable restrictions in place on the possession of firearms in parks, city facilities and at City Council meetings.
But five years ago the State Legislature prohibited cities from enforcing virtually any individual local regulation of firearms, ammunition or their accessories. The statehouse said we couldn’t restrict what kind of guns or ammunition can be carried, displayed, worn, concealed or transported, with a few very limited exceptions like courtrooms and intentional displays at official public meetings.
The state did nothing to fill this vacuum it created. It did create one exception to protect itself — prohibiting anyone but officers, legislators or judges from carrying guns in the statehouse. And in one more technical twist, the state said if any city ever tries to restrict firearms or ammunition, it would be subject to paying triple the lawyers’ fees for anyone who sues us.
So despite what a vast majority of Bloomington wants, we can’t ban a handgun from a public pool or a machine gun from a parade float.
Polls routinely show large majorities of Americans favoring reasonable restrictions on guns. Until we vote out the politicians who have been bought and paid for–or cowed–by the NRA, however, responsible public officials will have no option but to stand by and watch childish, macho displays of….what?
What is the psychology of a parent who parades around a municipal swimming pool packing a pistol?
In an era where police are rightfully concerned about being targeted by mentally unstable individuals, why on earth would we encourage citizens to walk around brandishing weapons?
How do they–or the rest of us– distinguish the “good guy” with the gun from the disturbed guy looking for provocation?
This is nuts.
Individuals carrying must be directly challenged on such occasions. The mayor says his constituents aren’t anti-gun or anti-2nd Amendment. I don’t believe that. I suspect a majority oppose the wrongful SCOTUS decision, thanks to Scalia, may he not RIP. We’ve gone much too far down this anarchical path.
There was a discussion on the blog yesterday regarding a proper diagnosis for Trump’s mental condition; it is all semantics because we have seen for years that the man is mentally unstable. Pence goes about his enforced unstable allowances and restrictions here in Indiana in a quieter manner, having pseudo religion to base his decisions on, appearing to be saner than Trump. Sheila has nailed both of them and at the same time explained Trump’s choice of Pence as his running mate. Between the two; all questionable issues will be covered and more of our rights and protections under the Constitution will be lost.
“This is nuts”
How many shootings have been the result of open carry?
Three Sundays ago I observed a member of my Lutheran church enter the sanctuary with a pistol strapped to his hip. I suppose, to him, the pistol was more security than love and grace?
When someone shows up armed at the pool, in a store or walking around downtown law enforcement should be notified of the potential threat. Perhaps having SWAT disarm dad in front of the neighborhood or in the frozen food aisle at Marsh with the kids standing by will make the point that the AR belongs in the gun safe or at the range.
The obvious thing to do in either case is to kill the gun carrier, and claim that you felt threatented. It’s that simple.
The NRA and pro-gun enthusiasts have gone too far! A citizen militia mindset is beyond insane.
Ken – really??? You don’t have a problem with machine guns being brandished at a parade?
Ron Skurat – very good idea!
… they will cling to their bibles and guns….
I wonder if we all just got up and left wherever we are–restaurant, church, pool, store, parade–whenever we see someone with a gun, if that would somehow pressure the owners into pressuring the legislators to change the laws. Open carry=no customers.
Ken Glass–my guess is all shootings have been the result of open carry.
patmcc
“they will cling to their bibles and guns….”
and by the time we’re through anyone who challenges them politically will be NUTS to do so. That’s the real message.
“Individuals carrying must be directly challenged on such occasions.”
Are you going to challenge a guy with a gun? I’m sure not going to.
I wonder if these NRA White guys would feel the same if a young black man with an A-15 strapped over his shoulder was walking down the sidewalk in their safe little neighborhoods or riding a golf cart loaded with semi-automatic guns and a sign “Black Lives Matter” in a parade in rural Indiana? None of these “good guys with a gun” make me feel safer – I feel threatened, and what about my rights to go to a pool, park, mall, grocery store, or now even church without seeing some “good guy with a gun”, which scares me to death and definitely do not want my grandchildren nearby – I think these guys are whackos, and thanks to Pence it is allowed, because guns equate Hoosier Values 🙁
You have to ask yourself, how “good” is a guy who walks around at a pool or in a church wearing a gun?
I’m working on my quick-draw. It looks like we’re going back to the days of the Old West.
I just love how you try to blame a law on Pence that became law before he was governor. Facts don’t matter to Democrats.
Ron Skurat, why are you anti-gunners so violent? Absolute hypocrisy to decry violence committed with guns and calling for killing lawful gun owners simply because the sight of an inanimate objects scares the day lights out if you.
Your column should be subtitled: A clear-eyed view of a jaundiced world.
Or WHY would anyone walk around a public pool filled with children and their parents – mostly moms – carrying a weapon? Is it to scare children or to gain attention or to try to ‘prove one’s manhood’ or because the gun toter has psychological issues? If someone doesn’t have the judgment to avoid scaring children, they don’t have the judgment to carry a gun.
Our legislature loves to control local governments and schools from the State House. This is just one of many bad examples of how they do so.
Speaking of insanity, it seems that Bernie’s claims of shabby treatment by the DNC were not crazy insane complaints but rather have merit.
Until this story was published by the New York Times, I’d paid little attention.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/23/us/politics/dnc-emails-sanders-clinton.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Whatever happened to the Republican mantra of local control, don’t fool yourself it never was.
Per the discussion of open carry law and how it has caused confusion for law enforcement in emergency situations like the shootings of police officers in Dallas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/11/us/texas-open-carry-laws-blurred-lines-between-suspects-and-marchers.html?_r=0
It’s intimidating to follow a guy with a gun tucked in his belt into a bank. Just nuts!
The “bigger is better” mentality & they’re trying to compensate…?
To expand this conversation a little, we have in 2016 a unique opportunity which we must take advantage of to reclaim the American Dream. In order to do that we must focus relentlessly forward.
We have now the makings of the politics that created our dream. We have a functional middle of the road political institution like we used to ID with the “R” word. We have a functional left of center institution such has always been associated with the “D” word.
We have the dysfunctional crazies staggering home from the Cleveland Circus filled with anger and fear and blind to everything worthwhile and functional in the dream except for their leader Trumpence.
We should call them what they are rather than what they claim to be. The Entitlement Party. Then we should in every way ignore them. They simply do not matter. They have no role to play in the history of American government.
We have everything that political checks and balances require within the functional party and fully represented by experienced dedicated professional public servants willing to act as such: to debate issues; to support the Constitution and all three branches of the government it created; to respect all Americans; to honor our political history; to restore balance and ethics; to be our voice in making sure that business serves us, not vice versa.
We need to act as though order has been restored while we restore it by limiting the participation in political debate to professional honorable people and adapt to the reality that they all happen to be D’s at the moment. We can adjust the label thing in the future.
Here’s the tough part. The fear and anger racket that is the only lifeblood of the Entitlement Party cannot be honored with our attention. It’s noise, not signal. It is irrelevant.
The rebirth of America begins, as it’s original birth did, in Philadelphia. It will be different than the original was in its inclusiveness. We have progressed so far in that regard. There will be much on our little screens to ignore as the Entitlement Party self destructs. But we’ll be too busy to react conducting the honorable debate between two functional perspectives of the Anerican Dream to make sure that both are well represented in the restoration of government to America.
Taking Pete’s above-expanded conversation and reducing it into a clear and concise sentence.
Vote for Clinton and Kaine in November 2016.
As a combat infantryman (draftee type) from Vietnam, I would be very nervous in the extreme if I saw people carrying firearms around. This bogus idea that “good guys” will protect us from the “bad guys” is twisted to the extreme. Even though we were well trained in the Army in target identification killing or wounding a comrade in arms was common enough to merit an expression “friendly fire” casualty.
The picture in the article shows a man with what appears to be a M-60 Machine Gun, Rate of fire 500–650 rounds/min. I gather a civilian semi-automatic is available. Back when our Second Amendment was written we had only muskets that a well trained soldier might be able to fire off 3-5 rounds a minute. These muskets back then were smooth bore which meant they were not that accurate. It would take 100 men to fire off 500 rounds a minute back when the Second Amendment was written. The M-60 Machine Gun needs two men to fire it one to aim and fire and another to feed. The machine gun was developed to kill people on an industrial scale.
You would think the Police would have a keen interest in gun control. I read an interesting article that appointed Police Chiefs seem to favor some form of gun control, but Sheriffs who are elected do not favor gun control.
Could we get a citizens Ballot Question to over-rule the State Legislators and make their club house space have the same laws that our schools, pools and parades have? It is down-right hypocritical for them to have different rules to keep themselves safer than we are allowed to keep ourselves…
What would it take?
Following Louie’s comment, I regularly receive email from Force Science, a publication for law enforcement officers about using weapons. (I am not one.) For these people, the message is clear: If you carry and use a weapon, you are not the Lone Ranger, and using a gun is infinitely more complex and dangerous than you can imagine. Even trained officers in stressful situations, despite training, have different perceptions and often do strange things, despite their intentions, and are more likely to kill or wound the wrong person. In fact, officers who regularly train on a firing range, aren’t much better shots than the untrained guy off the street. If that is the case with trained officers, what about Mr. Pool Guy? While he may imagine himself a hero protecting our liberties,he is very dangerous because he probably has overestimated his ability to use his weapon under stress. If he uses the weapon, it is likely that the wrong people will die. Nothing dumber than someone with a dangerous weapon who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know but who thinks he knows a lot. For that matter, people who are involved in shootings, even though they claim self-defense, are often the provocateurs.
My advice to anyone who sees one of these “heroes” is to simply get out of there and go as far away as you can. This guy may have just purchased this thing, and in the state of Indiana, you can carry and use one of them without training, hardly knowing out of which end the bullet comes. You or your friends and family do not want to be there if he takes off the safety.
The whole gun thing is about everything Republicans seem to do, via ALEC legislation: Ensure corporate profits. We’ve all been manipulated by advertising to buy garbage we didn’t need and didn’t really want. When I see people hauling around guns, whether big awkward ones over the shoulder, or small awkward ones on hips (not to mention purses), I think, “Another sucker, manipulated into buying something s/he has no real use for.”
Joy posted – I wonder if we all just got up and left wherever we are–restaurant, church, pool, store, parade–whenever we see someone with a gun, if that would somehow pressure the owners into pressuring the legislators to change the laws. Open carry=no customers.
I like this idea.
Louie, I think that is the best option. If you are ordering, put down the menu and leave. Or if eating, put it in a box and go. Everyone in the place should do that. The owner will get the message. A private business can say “no guns” and enforce it. If they think it’s just fine to open carry in their business, they had better hope for enough people who agree.
BSH, if a one sentence opinion works for you, go with it. I’m fine with that. But I’m trying to engage more nuanced thinking.
The Entitlement Party is well known for “stealing” associations. By that I mean they grab concepts like “Constitutional”, “freedom”, “founding fathers”, “patriotism”, “military” and appropriate them to add undeserved unearned patina to their dreams.
Another example is “Republican”.
The Tea Party and the Koch’s killed the GOP years ago but stole its identity to legitimize the Entitlement Party.
We all know that what’s left is far from an American Political Party. They are illegitimate in that context. They are demonstrably incapable and incompetent at politics.
They are more properly a cult or quasi-religion not focused on the operation of government but the creation of culture.
An additional point is through the death of the Republican political Party everything that America needs for checks and balances and diversity of political opinion is in the Democratic Party.
The net result of all of this cycle of life death and birth is that the real general election was the Democratic primary. A great and useful political battle in the storied honorable tradition of legitimate politics. It’s a shame when such a grand process in the public’s eye besmirches those who come in second or third place as they are all winners to those who share their vision.
The bellicose Entitlement Party will make a tremendous racket for the rest of the year on their death bed and we need simply to ignore it in the context of politics for it is in fact disconnected from politics.
What we need to focus on instead is that at the moment legitimate politics is all within the Democratic Party and the political job at hand is integrating the leftish and centric viewpoints into a plan to get things done in 2017 and beyond.
We need to deny the Entitlement religion any place in the discussion of government and politics simply because it’s not their business.
Or, put another way, we need to stop whinning and get working planning to actually accomplish what America has to do as a global leader beyond 2017.
Louie, Stuart, I’m with you. I live next to a liquor store (and I do mean NEXT DOOR) and have left the store several times without buying anything when I have seen weapons-even those carried by law enforcement. Can we get this idea to go viral?
Where is the ‘insanity ‘ definition for Indiana’s business capital and labor? I have seen ten times worse death-threats in tiny pills passed around at Bloomington, amphetamines for “professional enhancements” shared by people who have not yet given life to a child, for example. I saw a Monroe County victim of psycho-active drug use in permanent care at New Albany in a MHA feature story trip, same as a catatonic state permanently in 1967 “return to the community” stories. I heard a gal in a Bloomington restaurant ask her friend if she thought she should tell her fiance she had used LSD (see Boston tea party biochemical warfare resistance after Salem science). All in all, the Indiana residential area and justice conditions have improved tremendously since 1924! Heroin and cocaine must be transported to get into children’s DNA here, but “speed” and controlled substances do not even take business typing courses to make and trade for guns, tires, ammunition, more drugs, more USA $$$.
Here’s an NPR article about areas that Hillary and Tim Kaine agree or disagree on followed by two comments to the article. One is mine.
https://www.facebook.com/NPR/posts/10154608645231756
These are all the “key issues,” per NPR. 🙂 Missing, notably: public financing of elections, breaking up the big banks, universal healthcare, infrastructure investment, climate change and ending our dependence on fossil fuels, legalization of marijuana, reviving Glass-Stegall, reining in corporate overreach and enforcing anti-trust legislation, etc., etc.
How could NPR write the article and ignore the most important job of upcoming government, climate change?
The point is this is just the start of a much longer list of things that we need to do starting in 2017 when American government is reborn. They are all important. There’s a huge backlog of things that the shutdown of Congress and SCOTUS by Republicans stopped dead in their tracks for the last four years. The previous four were spent recovering from the previous 8 when the Entitlement Party here put the whole world in a deep hole.
That’s a long time to go without progress or even maintenance.
Now’s the time to prioritize and plan. Not everything can be done at once; priorities are a must and they must be our priorities.
The Cleveland Carnage was the end of the Entitlement Party. They spectacularly crashed in a blaze of anger, fear, lies, and fascist worship of a false prophet.
So bet it. We need to move on. We have much to do starting with reunification. We don’t have time to waste on the past, we have a future to build.
Pete,
You wrote “How could NPR write the article and ignore the most important job of upcoming government, climate change?”
The answer’s a no-brainer. NPR wrote its article using the information, the documentation it had. If NPR had no relevant documentation linking Tim Kaine and climate change, then so be it.
Rather than clutch our pearls around our necks, stroke our needless nuances, and bemoan any perceived shortcoming in Tim Kaine, how about we jump onboard the Clinton/Kaine bandwagon and make it happen?
Good read
BSH, I agree that it’s an NPR shortcoming not Clinton/Kaine.
I know that he went into a lion’s den and talked to a conservative conference about why denying science makes no sense to most people.
Here’s a short video of President Obama and Elizebeth Warren on why we can worry a little less about the Entitlement Party and their friends on Wall St.
https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethWarren/posts/10153922025133687
They would probably tell us that this isn’t the correct role for government. The role of government is to “create jobs” by allowing Wall St to have their way with us as Trumpence has made a whole career from.
David Mosedale – please get with the times David, the used to want to be gunslingers in the Old West, now they want to strut around as modern Rambos with automatic weapons. No practicing your quick draw is required. With enough fire power, you’ll be fine.
Larry Harmon – like so many of us, you misread the adage, it reads “the government closest to the people THAT IS CONTROLLED BY US, governs best”. Beyond that, remember that there is also the mandatory one-way valve – a more-local government may be more strident in restricting abortions and more strident in eliminating restrictions on gun laws, but not the other way around.
Insanity is one way to look at it. I have come to believe that the problem with guns in America isn’t their availability, or maybe even not the gun lobby. It the fetish that America has with guns. Other countries have plenty of guns, but nowhere else to you get the sense that people would rather lose parts of their body than part with their guns. Even in countries where guns are fairly ubiquitous, they have started to rethink having the military take their guns home when they are not actively serving. It seems to cut down on suicide. Of course, facts like that would never compete with the gun fetish so clearly on display in Bloomington.
Pete,
“I know that he went into a lion’s den and talked to a conservative conference about why denying science makes no sense to most people.”
I’ve no doubt that Tim Kaine’s been in more than one symbolic lion’s den over his long career in public office, and I’m curious about the particular lion’s den you reference. Where and when did Kaine engage in this specific lion’s den that called upon his defending science?
Isn’t Kaine the one who will further deregulate banks? Not that there is much left to deregulate after years of the legislature easing requirements and Bill Clinton signing the bill to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999. Typical of corporate America members and supporters…but better than Trump and Pence I suppose.
JoAnn, I read an article (can’t remember from where) a couple days ago about Kaine wanting to deregulate banks. The info in that article stated that he wants to ease regulations on small banks because it is much more difficult for them to meet the regs and that they are not involved in the same type of banking as the huge ones. If this is true, then I don’t have a problem with his view at all and it would help smaller banks and reduce or eliminate costs for regs that should never have applied to them in the first place. I understood the article to state that he wants to continue with the tough regs for large banks (institutions).
BSH: Good one at 4:26 PM. We gotta do what you said! Thanks!
BSH while I’m curious as to why you’d ask it’s not the only time that I’ve seen curious behavior so it doesn’t really matter.
I tried to recreate the search string that I used to uncover the specific info I referred to this am but wasn’t successful.
Here’s what I did find that’s related to it from the Richmond Times Dispatch.
“http://m.richmond.com/opinion/our-opinion/article_5ba9c1d2-ddc0-569f-bb4a-6b7e2b1f6627.html?mode=jqm
JoAnn, Nancy, Betty, et al
After living for 25+ years in Virginia and during segments of Tim Kaine’s time as the Mayor of Richmond, the Lt Gov of Virginia, and the Gov of Virginia, I’ve nothing but good to say about the man. If one is looking for an honest man and a man of total integrity, then Tim Kaine is your man.
This Washington Post article describes Kaine exactly the way I remember him. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/22/10-things-you-should-know-about-tim-kaine/?tid=pm_politics_pop_b#comments
One of the discussions floating around about Tim Kaine is his apparent support of TPP. His previous opinions about it are at odds with hers.
What bothers me is that all trade agreements are extremely complex very big picture negotiations that seek both benefits and compromises from all parties. They are absolutely bound to help some components of every involved country’s economy and hurt others. They are all based on economic modeling that forecasts technological and market changes over the length of the agreement.
No country is required to participate or agree on any of them. Walking away from the table is an option for everyone involved.
It seems certain to me that only a handful of people in every country involved even remotely understand all of the details considered over all of the years that negotiations typically go on.
Yet the people not involved without even a tiny bit of the insight of the process feel perfectly free to give the whole package thumbs up or down.
Why would any country ever voluntarily agree with a treaty that was not expected to net benefit to them?
As a Senator Tim Kaine is required and expected to support his constituentcy. As VP that perspective changes.
I don’t know what he and Hillary will figure out as a joint position to take on TPP as a result of new responsibilities towards it. I have faith that it won’t be a trivialized shot in the dark.
BSH, I just heard Tim Kaine’s speech in Miami with Hillary. He’s one of the most down to earth effective speakers that I’ve ever heard and has an impeccable and family wide track record of service to all Americans.
It’s hard to not be optimistic in his presence even connected on the screens.
As has been written so often here we are in this together as Americans and we’ll get to where we deserve to be together as Americans.
Trumpence’s dystopian vision is just not who we are.
My only disappointment was no mention of climate change in the epicenter of sea level trauma in the country.
I’m looking forward to hearing a lot more from and about him.