Paul Helmke could see the mass shooting in Florida last weekend finally starting a national conversation surrounding gun control and reducing gun violence.
But that’s also what he hoped would happen a year ago this month, when a man shot and killed nine people attending a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. It’s a conversation Helmke was sure would happen in 2012, after a man shot and killed 20 children and six school staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
“I thought something would happen after Sandy Hook. If that doesn’t get us to change, what will?” the Indiana University professor, former Republican mayor of Fort Wayne and former president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence told the attendees at his Friday morning Mini University lecture, “Isn’t There Anything We Can Do About Gun Violence in the U.S.?”
“And what’s our response as a country? We do nothing.”
For decades, doing nothing in response to gun violence has been the primary strategy of politicians, lobbyists and lawmakers, Helmke said. And doing nothing means that nothing changes, even after mass shootings.
Helmke and the Mini University staff decided the topic of his lecture last fall. They didn’t know that on the Sunday prior to the talk, 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando celebrating Latino night would be killed in what is now being called the deadliest mass shooting in modern United States history.
“Sadly, it’s pretty easy for me to expect it’s going to be timely,” Helmke said. “It’s almost like we will do anything not to talk about guns.”
Lack of knowledge
Sometimes, the people who do talk about guns don’t know anything about guns, said Matt Barthold, owner of Bloomington Home and Personal Security Store. Florida U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson told a reporter that the gunman responsible for the Orlando massacre had a firearm that could shoot “700 rounds in a minute.”