WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Paul Helmke, President
of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the former three-term
Mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana, issued the following statement about
yesterday's release of FBI crime data showing a surge in violent crime:
    "The statistics released by the FBI yesterday are very troubling,
particularly to a former Mayor of a mid-sized city like me. We have all
heard how the police are struggling in America's largest cities, but the
FBI report also shows that we are seeing a tremendous surge in violent
crime -- of more than five percent -- in cities with populations from
25,000 to half a million. Such small to mid-sized cities represent the
heart of America.
    "When I served as Mayor during the 1990's, the Administration and
Congress helped local communities fight crime by providing funds to hire
more police, and making it harder for criminals to get guns. As a result,
crime decreased. Over the past few years, however, the approach seems to
have been switched. Now cities are often seeing less police but more guns
on their streets. These new crime statistics indicate that we're doing
things backwards.
    "Violent crime is up in America for a number of reasons, but one very
likely cause is that it has become easier for criminals to arm themselves,
and with ever more deadly weapons.
    "For almost six years, many have systematically made it easier for
criminals to have access to firearms by weakening enforcement of laws that
cut illegal gun trafficking, supporting policies that encourage more
firearms on the streets of American cities, putting AK-47s and other
military-style semiautomatic weapons back onto our streets and even placing
huge restraints on the ability of governments and individuals to hold the
gun pushers accountable through the civil court system.
    "These policies and rollbacks of laws have helped increase violent
crime in our country. I urge the new Congress to take a more sensible
approach to restoring the safety net that the gun pushers have gutted."

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