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Indiana gun control push

In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting, gun control advocates across the country – including Indiana – are making a renewed push to tighten restrictions on gun sales. However, they’re getting mixed messages from the incoming Pence administration.

Stephen Dunlop is president of the group Hoosiers Concerned About Gun Violence.  His organization is proposing a series of changes to Indiana’s gun laws, including a limitation on the number of handgun purchases made at one time and punishment for gun owners when a child gains access to an unsecured firearm and injures themselves or others.  He also says he doesn’t want to hear from gun owners who say they’re worried the government’s going to take away their guns.

“I don’t think there’s any movement by anybody interested in gun violence to forcibly remove guns from people, perhaps with the exception at this point of assault weapons.”

Governor-elect Mike Pence has been ambivalent on the subject of increased gun control, saying only that he will defend the right of law-abiding citizens to own guns.  Incoming Indiana State Police chief Doug Carter – whose agency provides gun licenses in the state – says he doesn’t know yet whether current law is good enough.

“I can’t stand up here and tell you what’s right with the system or what’s wrong with the system but I can tell you, in very short order, I’ll be able to.”

Dunlop is pushing the Indiana General Assembly to take up the issue, including a study of the state’s gun violence and its relationship to mental health issues. 

Brandon Smith is excited to be working for public radio in Indiana. He has previously worked in public radio as a reporter and anchor in mid-Missouri for KBIA Radio out of Columbia. Prior to that, he worked for WSPY Radio in Plano, Illinois as a show host, reporter, producer and anchor. His first job in radio was in another state capitol, in Jefferson City, Missouri, as a reporter for three radio stations around Missouri. Brandon graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a Bachelor of Journalism in 2010, with minors in political science and history. He was born and raised in Chicago.
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