Commentary: Indiana and the NRA, a love story

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By Dan Carpenter

TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – It’s high time the National Rifle Association held its annual convention in Indianapolis. Lord knows the Indiana General Assembly, with encouragement from the governor’s office and little resistance from cautious public officials in the Circle City,

Dan Carpenter is a columnist for TheStatehouseFile.com and the author of "Indiana Out Loud."

Dan Carpenter is a columnist for TheStatehouseFile.com and the author of “Indiana Out Loud.”

has earned the honor.

Long ranked as one of the loosest states for gun traffic by federal authorities and firearms control advocates, Indiana has widened the lanes in recent years as its Republican majority has grown more reactionary and special interests such as the NRA have ratcheted up their influence.

Good to see it’s generated tourist dollars. Hard to see much sense in it otherwise.

You’d think there might be some soul-searching from a state that’s tagged by the feds as a major exporter of guns used in crimes elsewhere, owing to its exemption of “private” sales from background checks and its lack of caps on the number of weapons that can be purchased at one time.

Commentary button in JPG - no shadowYou might hope that a gun-rich state would take mass shootings in schools and workplaces as a hint to try some approach other than expanding the “right” to bring guns in one’s car to schools and workplaces.

You might expect a tough-on-crime state to respond to news reports of felons’ wrongfully obtaining gun permits in some way other than closing off the record of those permits to the public.

You might wonder why any state government facing a crisis of urban violence, such as that in Indianapolis, not only would ease restrictions on where guns can be carried but actually would forbid local governments from making their own rules in that regard.

You would not be familiar with how the mind of Indiana governance works.

What’s a stain of shame to many of us, including such radical incendiaries as police chiefs and emergency room physicians, is a badge of honor to the majority of our legislators, along with Gov. Mike Pence and his predecessor, Mitch Daniels.

Gun control is anathema to both those men; Daniels stamped his bona fides by opening state parks to firearms and Pence reacted to the Sandy Hook massacre by saying, in effect, don’t get carried away.

This was shortly after his election victory over Democrat John Gregg, who made sure voters knew he was “Bible-quotin’ and gun-totin’.” It is tough out there for Moms Against Guns, I’m here to tell you.

The list of favors to the gun lobby and Second Amendment fanatics is long and always lengthening; but the topper has to be the law enacted late in Daniels’ administration permitting householders to use force against any police officer or other public agent they believed to be unlawfully entering their home. This daft and potentially deadly sop to the fantasy frontier spirit came in response to an Indiana Supreme Court ruling against a man who’d fought with invading police. If they’re wrong, the court said, you have to complain or sue later; you’ve no inherent right to get physical.

A tough call; the only call, when you think about it. But when it comes to guns, the thinking over there seems to have all the range and focus of a sawed-off shotgun. I mean, talk about Stand Your Ground. This threatens the lives, not of annoying teenagers, but of cops and mail carriers. Just how conservative is that?

Providentially, no upstanding, licensed, rage-crazed homeowner has tested the home-is-your-castle law so far. And to our relief, much of the other gun legislation is mostly symbolic as well. Nobody has been checking Dad’s trunk when he’s come to pick up Junior; and if a House bill now pending passes as expected, nobody will be allowed to. It’s simply one more endorsement of a gun culture and a gun lobby that have made our communities a mine field that no number of gun control laws ever could sweep clean even if three ghosts visited the Statehouse tonight.

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, rightful Hoosiers. The way this legislature figures, you make us safer wherever you tote.

Oh, uh, but the Statehouse is off limits, of course.

Dan Carpenter is a freelance writer, a contributor to Indianapolis Business Journal and the author of “Indiana Out Loud.”

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48 COMMENTS

  1. Sure Dan, let’s punish law abiding Hoosiers for the gun violence in the liberal gun free mecca of Chicago. But rest assured Dan, as a responsible gun owner I am committed to protect your right to become a victim.

  2. “Providentially, no upstanding, licensed, rage-crazed homeowner…”

    “Rage-crazed homeowner?” So Dan, if your life is under threat in your rage crazed home, what will you do? Grab a less lethal from of protection and engage the threat in a fair fight? Will you beat him with your ink pin? Do you even know what legally constitutes self defense?

    No, your going to call the people with guns who you pay to perform acts of violence on your behalf and hope they get there before the bad guy gets you.

    Buy a shot gun Dan, buy a shot gun.

  3. Ah yes, the eight homicides in twelve hours experienced by Indianapolis recently could have all been stopped if only we’d have listened to Dan…oh? What’s that? They wouldn’t have? Most of the people committing murders in Indy are convicted felons who use stolen firearms? Well, lets just make it illegal to steal guns from lawful owners then…oh wait, we already do. Those naughty criminals just don’t listen. Dan, Tully, and Erica are the reason nobody reads the Indystar anymore, unless their stuck in the sixties…hunting for grievances and excuses.

  4. “rage-crazed homeowner”??
    Mr. Carpenter,– Twisted blather is obviously your forte.
    Rave on into irrelevancy, til the cows come home, seems to be a goal you have within your grasp.

  5. As soon as Dan used the feds as his reference he lost all credibility. The loss of public trust in our institutions is a greater threat than guns in any hands. I’m sure Dan is a typical liberal white flighter who lives in a gated and guarded community.

  6. Well Dan you spent a lot of time deriding those wishing and supporting the 2nd Amendment, you know a persons Constitutional rights, but you provided no real substance for you objections, just a lot of bile in the hopes to make your stance more digestible.

    You go a long way to denigrate the home owner as though they are the sole cause of gun crimes. Are you taking a similar tack from Democratic Senator Harry Reid calling those opposing the ACA liars and trying to say homeowners are responsible. Your attempts to blame gun ownership for the high crime rate in Indianapolis is feeble, shallow, laughable and worst of all very selective.

    Yes Indianapolis does have a high crime rate and so does Chicago. Yet Chicago has way tighter gun control and still has a crime rate rivaling Indianapolis. So Dan, try again.

  7. Indiana Historical Society Press

    Tuesday, July 23, 2013

    Indiana Out Loud: Dan Carpenter Book

    Since 1976, Dan Carpenter’s writing has appeared in the pages of the Indianapolis Star as a police reporter, book critic, and renowned op-ed columnist. In writing for the state’s largest newspaper, Carpenter has covered the life and times of some notable Hoosiers, as well as serving as a voice for the disadvantaged, sometimes exasperating the Star’s readership in central Indiana as the newspaper’s “house liberal.”

    (more)

    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    Come on CCO……surly you can find at least one conservative journalist in the State. This steady diet of the “statehousepile.com” needs a little balance.

    ___

  8. Special interest bad when it’s NRA. I wonder if Dan thinks special interest groups are bad on say… something like gay marriage or a pro gun control group?

  9. On the other side of the coin, there are no guns in my home, car, or property. There are a whole lot of people, me included, who feel much safer without the presence of guns. Laugh at me and attack my posts all you want but if I ever choose to leave Indiana, this will be a major reason. What I cannot figure out is what are you people afraid of? Have you ever had to use a gun in “self-defense”? You need to fear things like pollution causing cancer more and that is not stopped by a gun. You also need to be concerned about innocents being accidentally killed by a firearm. I have known personally 2 children to whom this has happened. Some people stomp about “gun rights”. Please remember that it is my right to refuse to have a gun near me. Please stop and think about the rights of others.

    • I have known the same number of children who drown. Please keep water away from me. Think about my rights. More than 1500 children a year drown. Now we need to talk about auto deaths. Please stop and think about the rights of others.

      • POV – Your post is not logical and meant to be a mean throw-away comment. Gun rights are waved in my face almost every day often on the CCO. And most comments are those that are speaking in favor of more guns and more places to carry them. Very few comments are from my point of view. As I said before, laugh at me and attack my posts all you want. We won’t change each others minds. And you still did not answer my questions. What are you so afraid of? Have you ever has occasion to use your gun in “self-defense”? Were your home and family being threatened?

        • “What are you so afraid of? Have you ever has occasion to use your gun in “self-defense”? Were your home and family being threatened?”

          Things always happen in bigger cities before they trickle down to Evansville. Here in Indianapolis we have had several “home invasions” the last few months, some where the homeowners were murdered and raped. I would ask Mr. Erb of Westfield (minutes away from me) what he thinks.

          http://www.wthr.com/story/24310348/2013/12/26/westfield-police-arrest-suspect-in-double-homicide

        • Martha,

          Quit trying to play the victim here. You are against gun ownership, fine, it is your right. But quit trying to belittle those that want to exercise the right to have a gun. No one is out in the street waving their gun in your face. Quit being so melodramatic. The responsible carriers, keep them concealed and out of view, whether on their person of in their vehicle or home.

          The hypocrisy of your post is laughable. You say “People are going to laugh at me and attack me”, well isn’t that what you are doing by calling them afraid or paranoid, as you do in your post. Then you attack POV for disagreeing with you.

          God forbid any one ever has to use the gun for protection, put it is good to know they have it if they ever need it. Most people in the state and probably the country disagree with your agenda against guns. But please feel free to move to the safer areas, like the cities of LA, Chicago, DC, etc. Then after you have been attacked, robbed, raped, threatened, return to us and tell us how you feel then.

          • Brandon M
            My point is that Indiana is a “gun state” more than other states. I don’t like guns but all I hear on sites are people defending them. I disagree. You can believe differently than I do and the only understanding we will come to is to agree to disagree. That’s okay. It is a free country and you and I can each think what we want. Keep your guns and I won’t have any.

          • You are not alone, Martha. Many of us share your view. And for all the fear of “home invasion attacks”, the FACT is that most guns are used against family members. Women who live in homes with guns are much more likely to be victims of gun crimes than women in home w/o guns. And the comments about “violating rights” of all these “responsible gun owners” who feel the need to carry loaded guns around is just nonsense. As we have seen already with more guns in circulation, we will increasingly see incidents such as when the person shot a family member over cable T.V., someone else shot a person in a movie theater over texting, etc. Because lots of these “responsible gun owners” – like most of us – get irritated, lose their tempers, etc. These situations would normally mean harsh words between people, but when people are carrying loaded guns, it more likely will lead to shooting. I could go on and on, but the key to remember is that most people (as apparent in so many of these replies) are responding from an emotional, rather than logical, position. And this in turn has been stoked and developed by the NRA and others who have significant financial interests to protect. Join Moms Against Guns, Martha, and keep up the fight for a return to reason with regard to guns.

        • The answer to your questions are yes. I’m very fearful of trayvon. I’m not a white flight liberal, I live in Evansville. You do not live on my street.

          • Which part do you fear the most?

            The hoodie? The iced tea? The loud rap music?
            The skittles? They walking around at night in their own neighborhood?

            “They always get away” right?

          • I don’t think I live on your street but I do live in Evansville. I have not flown to the county. And I probably do not have anything in my home that any one would want to take. I am not wealthy by any means.

    • No laughing needed. It is you choice to exercise your 2nd and 4th Amendment rights. Neither does the choice to have a weapon do with fear, it deals with my ability if the situation arose to defend myself. If a person came at you with a ball bat I hope you are not inferring you would just stand there. Sure you can run but so can the offender and what if they are faster than you. The point, at some stage of that encounter will will choose to defend yourself.

      Fearing pollution and cancer causing material is at the low end of my concern. At this point in time if you do enough research, just about everything we eat, breath and drink has the potential to cause cancer. There is simply no way to avoid that unless you live in a bubble and even then I doubt that is a guarantee.

      Sorry to hear about the children but that does not fault the weapon. It is physically impossible for a weapon to leap into a persons hand and be fired. No more than it would be a knifes fault if those two children had one. No more than it would be a pair of scissors fault.

      If you don’t want to have a weapon that is your choice and more power to you it is your right, by the same token do not stomp on my rights.

      • dveatch,
        I am not stomping on your rights and do not believe that I ever mentioned that I thought your shouldn’t have a gun if you wanted one. Please make your own evaluations and decisions as I will make mine. I do think that the situation mentioned by “in Indy from Evansville” does show a disturbing increase in violence in Indiana or at least in Indy. The question is what is breeding such behavior. That needs to be addressed. In the meantime, I still would prefer to follow my parents lead and lead of people I admire by not having a firearm in my home. I do not feel comfortable with them.

        • The roving bands of feral youth are the problem Martha.

          Your admiration will do little to protect you and yours when dark forces cross your threshold.

          I would wholly imagine you will be cowering, praying to God that the men with the guns would show up quickly.

          I will never pray that prayer and when I call 911 I will tell dispatch that there is no hurry in showing up. The threat has been neutralized.

          • Sad when Jim Cary speaks for your views “My Moral Only BB.” I guess now it is you deciding who can own a firearm.

          • “Roving bands of feral youth” who play the wrong kind of music too loudly and always get away.

            The first steps in dehumanizing the victim in order to rationalize and justify taking someone’s life.

            Then fantasize about a liberal being on their knees to a group of thugs while you the God fearing gun carrying ultrapatriot take someone out.

            Better than the playmate of the month to you isn’t it?

          • ‘Brains Benton says:
            March 3, 2014 at 8:12 am
            “Roving bands of feral youth” who play the wrong kind of music too loudly and always get away.

            The first steps in dehumanizing the victim in order to rationalize and justify taking someone’s life.

            Then fantasize about a liberal being on their knees to a group of thugs while you the God fearing gun carrying ultrapatriot take someone out.

            Better than the playmate of the month to you isn’t it?”

            It’s real hard to “dehumanize” that whose level of humanity has been compromised by a “Cradle to Grave” paradigm and the spawn of a single parent upbringing who in many instances is also on the public dole supplementing her drug use purchases with the proceeds from prostitution.

            And you have the unmitigated gall to lambaste an upstanding legal gun owner and productive member of society whose only real shortcoming is a refusal to be muzzled by Libtard Political Correctness.

        • That’s your choice Martha, but if you are ever threatened by real and immediate personal harm, not only will you feel comfortable with firearms in your house, you will call people with firearms and hope they arrive in time to prevent harm to your family. Most often they arrive in time to make chalk outlines.

          What we need is gun safety and self defense taught by our schools. It’s not cowboys and kung-fu. Most people, including gun owners, do not know what legally defines self defense and how to avoid becoming a victim.

        • Perhaps the most damaging dynamic is absentee fathers in black families. It is not a black thing, it is an absentee thing. It is why we have feral youth. But what politician is going to have enough courage to address that problem.

        • Funny how what we call rights nowadays used to be responsibilities.

          http://www.connerprairie.org/learn-and-do/indiana-history/america-1800-1860/the-militia-in-early-indiana.aspx

          The trail from the Falls of The Ohio to the land office at Vincennes was a long and dangerous affair for citizens without any means of defending themselves. Initially, volunteers, armed and on horseback, patrolled the route and saved many settlers. When the country was settled enough for taxes to be applied to this situation a Ranger force was hired.

          Martha, I do not expect you to understand what motivated those volunteers to put themselves in harms way, at much personal expense, but it had everything to do with standing on one’s own two legs and doing what you know is morally right.

          • Press,
            I won’t take offense here because you do not know me but there are all kinds of moral stands. And I have taken a few that you probably would not get if I tried to explain them. There is not enough space here and it is really no one’s business but mine. So please don’t tell me I have no understanding of duty, life and death, ethics, and morals because you don’t know. Guns are not the ultimate answer to all questions. And I know where I stand on without any explanations to anyone. If I die tomorrow I will go out knowing that.

    • By the way Martha having never used a gun in self defense does not mean I would never be in a situation that having one might make a difference in my survival. If you want to go down that logic road, then if you have never had water damage to your house or its shingles ripped off by a storm or tornado, or a car accident then why would you need insurance? The law of the land (the Constitution) says I have a right to protect myself and I choose to use a gun. What do you choose for protection?

      • You mean your premiums are going to pay for other people’s claims!!!???

        Communist!!

        • It’s not communism until you’re forced to buy the insurance whether need nor want it…like the ACA.

        • Wow, quite a jump in logic there don’t you think? But then we can always expect you to make illogical jumps from subject to subject.

      • Please, we must agree to disagree. I don’t feel so fearful that I want a gun for protection, If you do that is fine. It is your business. You respect my rights to my decision and I will respect yours. Just move on.

  10. I own several guns but I believe a few common sense laws are needed. Big business controls our govt.

    • Ghost makes a comment not straight from the MSNBC talking points memo, strike me dead! At least he is honest enough to admit it and not hide behind the “I’m a celebrity and need protection” that most of them would use.

    • Commonsense laws? you’re just parroting the far left jargon. What would those commonsense laws be? Criminals don’t own firearms? Do not use a firearm to shot up a school? If we took all of the murders that occur in cities with the most “commonsense gun laws,” then you would reduce gun violence by 60%. But then you voted for Obama, so when “commonsense” says that you may not be a responsible gun owner and should have your firearms taken for your safety, it will be a good thing.

  11. Dan, Dan, Dan ! You and your ilk are toying with a tail in fog filled arena ! Problem being, you have absolutely no idea of the size of the dragon it is attached to!

    Tickle the tail Dan. Jerk the tail a little Dan.

    Be prepared for a surprise Dan. You are a certifiable irrational Hoplophobe.

  12. School/work place mass murders may be on the increase because of the 24/7 news channels. Could it be that a deranged individual having issues, see this mass reporting as a “10 minute fame” if one would carry this sort of thing out? The saturation of this persons name for weeks on in, could be the problem?

    Could the solution for this be that the individual or group should never be allowed to be known? Allow the normal reporting on the crime be as it is, but no names of the shooter. Results, no fame!

    Guns in general are not a problem. When one is used in a crime is where the problem occurs. Punish the “user” of the offense, not the gun itself.

    Harden criminals will not be swayed by guns, or by any law. But I do feel that most of the shootings, that fall under “punks”, can be swayed by home ownership, and “heavy” jail time if a gun “is” used in a crime. Not the slap of the hand we have now.

  13. I have been a hunter,target shooter and collector of guns. I see it as my right to own a gun for protection or sport. It is my right to protect mine in anyway possible! p.s. look at the number of home invasion in Eville it will surprise you!!

  14. The Loons from the Left will say and do anything to de-weaponize the public. Obama, Holdher, and Bidet want your weapons to ratchet up their collective control.

    • Then also take note that The Loons on the Right won’t so much endlessly flip their lips with shadowy polls and debunked studies from libtard universities as they would rather quietly clean their weapons and keep their powder dry.

      This whole field of battle is looking rather lopsided!

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