GOSHEN -- A number of Goshen residents are upset that Mayor Allan Kauffman joined Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a national lobbying coalition of mayors.
The opposition isn't as much about the coalition's stated goals as it is about concerns over the potential for erosion of Second Amendment rights.
"As a non-partisan group of more than 450 mayors, the coalition's principal focus is fighting crime," Kauffman says in a prepared statement he sends to people concerned about his membership in MAIG.
Doug Nisley, one of the people concerned with Kauffman's membership in the group, said, "I just think that the name of this group is a cover-up for attacking our Second-Amendment rights. It's just like anything else. It's got to start somewhere." Nisley said he'd like people to petition Kauffman to reconsider his membership in the group.
WHAT'S MAIG ALL ABOUT?
A joint statement from co-chairs Michael Bloomberg of New York and Thomas Menino of Boston describes MAIG. "The issue of illegal guns is not conservative or liberal; it is an issue of law and order -- and life or death.
"We support the Second Amendment and the rights of citizens to own guns. We recognize that the vast majority of gun dealers and gun owners carefully follow the law. And we know that a policy that is appropriate for a small town in one region of the country is not necessarily appropriate for a big city in another region of the country."
Their statement also says, "we all agree on the goal: Protecting the rights of Americans to own guns, while fighting to keep criminals from possessing guns illegally."
Kauffman said a mailing from the National Rifle Association to NRA members in the Goshen area is misleading about the group. "The coalition is not against right-to-carry permits, eliminating gun shows or removing gun ownership from lawful citizens, as the recent NRA mailing has led some people to conclude. The coalition does believe in preserving states' rights (which is a traditional conservative value), requiring background checks at gun shows, supporting common-sense legislation that helps reduce proliferation of illegal guns and making it more difficult for criminals to acquire guns," according to the mayor.
He points out that he's joined by five other Indiana mayors. Among them are Tom Henry of Fort Wayne. According to Fort Wayne's government Web site, Henry served in the U.S. Army Military Police from 1971 to 1973.
Another Indiana mayor on the coalition is Fred Armstrong of Columbus. His biography on that city's Web site shows he earned a Purple Heart and two Bronze Start during his U.S. Army service in Vietnam from 1967 to 1969. From 1969 to 1989 he served as a police officer.
"The organization is not a bunch of left-wing radicals who want to interfere with legal and responsible gun ownership or use," Kauffman wrote. "If I sense that this coalition strays too far from its purpose, and infringes on individuals' rights to gun ownership, I will reconsider having signed on. So far, I don't see that has been the case."
WHAT'S THE OPPOSITION?
Nisley doesn't like MAIG's stance on a federal bill that would've required all states to honor other states' gun permits (Indiana already does) regardless of the standards of the state where the permit was issued.
"I fully believe that if you carry into another state, you follow that state's laws. The problem is my Constitutional rights stopping at the state lines," Nisley said.
He also doesn't like the idea of federal laws that would require ongoing registration of guns. "Would that mean I can't sell a gun to my neighbor?"
Nisley doesn't take issue with some of MAIG's stated goals: "I agree with them in trying to stop crime with guns," he said.
In fact, he has a strict personal view of gun crime. "I believe if you commit a crime with a gun, it should be mandatory life in prison," he said.
However, he doesn't think that MAIG's lobbying approach aims at criminals so much as it aims at gun owners in general.
It's a view shared by the NRA. Last month, the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action posted on its Web site, "Over the past few years, even as they continue to claim they are only concerned with 'illegal' guns, MAIG has worked to impose new restrictions on law-abiding gun owners by regulating gun shows, supporting reckless lawsuits against the firearm industry, and opposing the right of self-defense for law-abiding Americans with carry permits."
One specific issue, according to the NRA, is that "MAIG has strongly pushed for legislation to prohibit any person listed on the secret 'terror watch list' from buying a firearm. This is a serious threat to Second Amendment rights. The 'terror watch list' was created as a security tool. It has secret standards for placing a name on the list and no mechanism for removing a name from the list. In almost all cases, a person has no idea he or she is included on the list."
The NRA also claimed, "Bloomberg created 'Mayors Against Illegal Guns' as a front group to lobby Congress to oppose important pro-gun reforms and support new federal gun control restrictions. And some mayors have joined or been duped into joining this anti-gun Bloomberg crusade."
Nisley said, "My goal is to petition the mayor with signatures for him to resign from the group."
HOW DO YOU DEFINE "ILLEGAL GUN?"
"What is an illegal gun? The gun's not illegal. The guy carrying the gun's illegal. Those are the people they need to go after. You don't go after the gun, you go after the guys," Goshen resident Doug Nisley said.
Goshen Detective Dave Zollinger, the city police department's evidence technician, said most of the three to five guns the department takes weekly are not illegal themselves. They're otherwise legal guns that have been used in a crime or are illegal for the bearer to have.
Jason Post, spokesman for MAIG, provided the group's definition: "An illegal gun is a gun that is possessed, used, or transferred in violation of federal, state, or local laws."
Illegal use of guns is a big problem in the area, said Goshen Police Chief Wade Branson. During his years as head of the countywide Interdiction and Covert Enforcement unit, Branson said they would "seize guns all the time, hundreds of them. It's just phenomenal how many guns the ICE unit has: Handguns, rifles, whatever ... it was just a tremendous number. It's bizarre."