Supporters of common sense measures to prevent gun violence lost a good friend yesterday with the passing of former President Gerald R. Ford.

During his days in Congress, Ford supported efforts to ban cheap handguns (known as “Saturday Night Specials”). As President, he pushed for a 15-day waiting period for handguns. In 1992, he joined former presidents Reagan, Carter, and Nixon in supporting the Brady Bill which provided for background checks on sales by licensed dealers. In June 2004, Ford joined former presidents Clinton and Carter in urging the renewal of the ban on assault weapons.

As a member of the Warren Commission which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and the target of two different gun assaults himself in 1975, Ford was personally aware of the costs of gun violence to individuals as well as to our system of government.

Ford’s support as a Republican for reasonable restrictions to make the misuse of guns more unlikely reminds us of the strong support this issue has had historically from both of the major political parties. Efforts to increase public safety and protect the interests of individuals who want to live in communities free from threats of gun violence should not be seen the sole province of one major party and not the other. President Ford, on this issue as well as so many others, adopted a pragmatic approach with the goal of doing what was best for our country and its citizens.

On a personal note, too, I always admired President Ford. As a fellow Midwestern Republican with degrees from the Big Ten as well as Yale Law School, I followed his career closely. As I mention in a story in the Fort Wayne News Sentinel yesterday, his comments were one of the main reasons prompting me to run for the first of my three terms as mayor of Fort Wayne in 1987. I thanked him for his role in my political career as well as the country’s when I had the chance to spend some time with him in 1995.

The country could benefit from more individuals like Gerald R. Ford. He will be missed.

Recently released crime statistics confirm what I’ve been hearing from mayors and police chiefs and reading in magazines and papers from across the country - violent crime is on the increase once again, and in places many thought were safe. The role of guns in this increase should be obvious.

According to statistics released by the FBI on December 18, 2006, the climb in violent crime is highest in cities with populations between 25,000 and 500,000 with all the size groupings within this range showing an increase of over 5%. In another report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics on December 10, 2006 released information which showed an increase in killings at schools during the 2004-5 academic year (a time period which doesn’t include the fatal shootings in schools in Wisconsin, Colorado and Pennsylvania this fall) with victims ranging from age 5 to 18.

When I was mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana during the 1990s and crime and violence were on the upswing across the country, the federal government responded by providing funds to hire more police through their COPS grants and made it harder for criminals to get easy access to guns by adopting the Brady Bill in 1993, which provided for background checks, and the Assault Weapons Ban in 1994. Over the past few years, however, the federal response seems to have reversed its efforts - COPS funding has been cut, the Assault Weapons Ban was allowed to expire, and the Brady background checks have been weakened. In effect, our national approach to fighting crime has gone from “more police and less guns” to “more guns and less police.” Is there any wonder violent crime is on the upswing?

A story in The Washington Post on December 20, 2006 shows again the tragedies that come from too easy access to guns. The Fairfax County, Virginia Police Department announced that two of its officers, Michael E. Garbarino and Vicky O. Armel, who were slain outside the Sully District police station in their county on May 8, 2006 would be receiving medals of valor. The Police Department also released a report describing how these officers, and two others who responded to the shootings, acted with courage and heroism in dealing with the 18-year old shooter who was carrying an AK-47 type rifle along with a .30-06 rifle, four .22-caliber handguns, and one .38-caliber handgun.

If our police, at our police stations, carrying weapons, and wearing bulletproof vests (Armel was struck in the chest by a .30-06 round that pierced her vest), are vulnerable to such attacks, how can we think that the solution to rising crime is more guns for the general population? Why not make it harder to get these weapons? According to the Post, the teenage shooter had recently fled from a mental health facility in Maryland and his parents are being investigated by federal authorities for “possibly allowing him illegal access to their cache of guns.”

As a general rule, more guns means more violence, not less. Let’s use some common sense to help make our communities, our schools, and our homes safer in the New Year.

Meeting with Members of Congress, keynoting an event in Maine, and joining with mayors from around the country to honor the memory of U.S. Conference of Mayors President (and long-time mayor of Dearborn, Michigan), Michael A. Guido, have kept my schedule busy since Thanksgiving.

Now that the lame-duck session of the 109th Congress has ended, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is gratified that none of the bad bills advanced by the gun lobby this year became law. I still don’t understand how someone can argue that “all we need to do is enforce the laws on the books” and then focus their lobbying efforts on weakening those laws.

I’ve been meeting with incumbent Members of Congress and their staffs to promote common sense proposals to end gun violence, but have also had the chance to talk with many of the newly-elected officials, most recently at a reception on December 6th, and was encouraged by the positive response from many of the new Congressional representatives.

On December 7th, I was the guest speaker for the Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence at their Seventh Annual Fitzgerald Award Dinner in Portland, Maine where they honored Chellie Pingree, the President and CEO of Common Cause. Pingree was one of the co-founders of MCAHV. The hundred-plus people in attendance let me know of Maine’s strong outdoor traditions of hunting and shooting, but also their broad support for sensible gun laws to strengthen public health and help reduce domestic violence.

Mayors have always been some of the strongest supporters of common sense restrictions on guns. They see first hand the tragedies that result from illegal guns. The Mayors’ Coalition Against Illegal Guns started by Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City and Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston earlier this year has helped bring attention to this issue across the country. On December 7th, Mayor Bloomberg announced that six out-of-state gun dealers had agreed to let court officials monitor their operations to prevent illegal gun sales. This story was covered on the front page of the New York Times the next day. I particularly liked the reference in the news release announcing this settlement and other initiatives to the goal of convincing “Congress to take ideology out of law enforcement.”

I was with Mayor Menino and other mayors (including Akron, Baltimore, Charlotte, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Oklahoma City) on December 8th and talked about some of these issues, but the occasion was a somber one. Michael A. Guido, age 52, the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, and President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors since this June died at his home on December 5th surrounded by his family. Mayor Guido and I have been friends since I first started attending U.S.C.M. events in 1989. When I was President of the U.S.C.M., Mayor Guido headed the committee on telecommunications. Just last June he signed on to the “Mayors Against Illegal Guns Statement of Principles,” an important step for a midwestern Republican. He saved his city and the concerns of all cities across the country. He was a good person and will be missed.