WASHINGTON - December 20 - 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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