Advocates for gun control and NRA spar before Evansville City Council

EVANSVILLE, Ind. – National debate over school safety and gun laws made its way to the Evansville City Council meeting room on Monday.

Speakers on different sides of those issues packed the chamber after learning the council could consider a resolution on school safety, as other Indiana cities have done.

Resolutions are not laws but rather statements of a position. State government has far greater authority over firearms rules than locally elected bodies. But some local governments in Indiana are weighing in.

A resolution recently approved by South Bend’s city council, for example, encourages state legislators to keep guns away from mentally ill individuals, domestic abusers and close loopholes in the federal background check system.

Evansville City Councilman Dan Adams, D-At-large, said he’s considering introducing a local resolution about school safety but has not written it yet and still doesn’t know what it would contain.

Adams said a school safety resolution for Evansville would not necessarily mirror those for South Bend or any other city.

“I’m trying to put together a resolution that reflects Evansville to make our schools safe,” Adams said. “That’s it. I’m not taking on the world. I’m just trying to make our schools safe. I don’t care how radical Bloomington was, or South Bend. We’re here, and I want it to reflect us.”

Adams told the audience at Monday’s City Council meeting he’s looking for guidance on the school safety topic.

Many in the crowd had opinions.

Sean O’Daniel, a city resident, said he has a petition signed by 216 people in support of various gun-control measures, including those in South Bend’s resolution. O’Daniel called for excise taxes on firearms that could help pay for shot-tracking devices or detection systems at schools.

O’Daniel also called for bans of “assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.”

“I recommend your resolution be very strict because it will be watered down in committee and by the House of Representatives and the Senate before reaching the governor,” O’Daniel said.

Many gun rights advocates filled the room to say such proposals would not stem mass shootings. Some people wore sweatshirts with “NRA” emblazoned on the front.

Jim Bradley said he lost a niece to an act of gun violence but does not believe additional firearms rules would have stopped the crime.

“Outlawing guns is not going to cure nuthin',” Bradley said. “There’s no gun regulation that’s going to stop a criminal, and besides that it’s unconstitutional.”

Melody Bennett is an NRA-licensed firearms instructor.

“We need to know how to use these tools properly and safely,” Bennett said. “We shouldn’t put more laws in place that have done nothing in the past. Criminals don’t care about laws, and creating more laws doesn’t change anything.”

The discussion often swerved away from governmental policy and into the culture of local schools. Some called for students to more effectively take care of their peers, assisting those who seem troubled or getting help for them.

Many said bullying remains a problem in local schools and called for them to take a tougher stance on it. Some cited a disconnect between students and school personnel such as counselors and social workers, or a lack of funding for enough of those positions.

The Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. policy manual has a lengthy section about bullying.

The City Council also heard from some high school students who were part of the March 24 March for Our Lives event in Evansville.

Ryan Ruder, a Signature School senior called for the resolution O’Daniel advocated, “so the government of Indiana will hopefully pass more legislation to prevent firearm violence and promote mental health awareness … I am here to make my school safer, and it is incumbent upon our government to make us safer.”

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