(This is Part 3 of an ongoing series, illustrating how contentious any discussion on gun restrictions is, and how difficult it can be to engage in civilized, honest, and open conversation.)

From a fax received at my office last week:

“YOU ARE WRONG HELMKE!

“You folks are about to loose [sic] some major ground in your cause to destroy the 2nd Amendment. Your communist approach and hate for America is despicable and I pray frequently for your Nazi organization to fail.�

-Kevin Byers (Washington State)

Last week, a mentally unstable man with a gun entered the State Capitol in Denver, and was fatally shot by security guards. As Rocky Mountain News columnist Mike Littwin pointed out on July 17, this was made possible in part by the fact that the Capitol’s metal detectors had been removed:

They used to have metal detectors for a while after 9/11, but eventually the legislators voted to remove them. They had no choice, I guess. The legislature was in the process of passing concealed-carry laws, and how do you explain that guns aren’t the problem if you insist on putting a metal detector on your own door?

After reading Littwin’s column, I came across a related story from District Township, Pennsylvania, reported in the Reading Eagle on July 20:

Roland Van Tongel, a handgun protruding from his hip, took the floor and launched a verbal attack on District Township supervisor Ed Overberger at a recent township meeting.
…

It wasn’t the zoning issue as much as Van Tongel’s demeanor that troubled the 25 or so people at the July 12 meeting.

“It really shook up the folks who were at the meeting,” Overberger said. “People told me they had things they wanted to bring up, but they were afraid to talk.”

Van Tongel said later that he has a permit to carry a concealed weapon, and that he brought the 9 mm Glock handgun to the meeting because he had received telephone death threats.

He attributed those threats to his outspoken manner on controversial issues, but he could not identify the source.

One attendee “asked the supervisors if they could prevent a person from bringing a weapon into a public meeting.� Indicating that they were clearly worried by the presence of an angry man with a loaded weapon a contentious municipal meeting.

It’s often difficult to understand the “all-or-nothingâ€� approach to gun laws in this country. The gun industry lobbyists who pressured the Colorado Legislature into passing concealed-carry laws may have also convinced lawmakers that they risked being branded hypocrites if they did not permit weapons in the Capitol. It’s not hypocrisy to draw a line, to set boundaries, and to enact sensible rules. The battle over gun laws shouldn’t be a question of permitting “all guns, all the time” versus “no guns anywhere.”

Anyone who thinks that limits are inherently hypocritical or automatically ineffective helps enable a mentally-deranged man armed with a lethal weapon to walk unimpeded into the State Capitol in Denver. Or into a classroom in Blacksburg. Or an office in Troy, or a diner in your own hometown. This viewpoint says that a few deaths — regardless of whether the dead were bystanders or mentally ill people in need of help — are unavoidably acceptable because of the need to allow “all guns, all the time.”

(Note to readers: This blog entry, as well as past blog entries, are co-posted on bradycampaign.org/blog and www.huffingtonpost.com)

With yesterday’s announcement by Mayor Adrian Fenty that the District of Columbia is seeking Supreme Court review of the Parker decision, I’d like to remind our readers of the work being done at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

The legal team at the Center has launched a “rolling critique� of the decision. Part Two of the critique is now online.

This series is available in PDF format and will be updated regularly.

• Introduction: Second Amendment Fantasy
  The D.C. Circuit’s Opinion in the Parker Case
• Part One: Mangling Miller
  How the Parker Opinion Distorted and Defied Supreme Court Precedent
• Part Two: Decision by Eraser
  How the Parker Court Obliterated Half of the Second Amendment

A key House committee yesterday left in place a gun lobby provision that prevents cities and law enforcement officials from accessing vital data on illegal gun trafficking for proactive crime fighting.

Even though the reasons for the restriction seem to have little basis in reality, the Committee’s vote did not come as a surprise to those of us who follow the issue.

More than a dozen newspapers, including Rep. Todd Tiahrt’s own hometown paper, have called for this restriction to be lifted. Two of the latest are the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and the Washington Post. Also, today’s New York Daily News tells the horrible story of a fallen NYPD officer and how the gun that shot him was trafficked illegally from Virginia. Whose interests are protected by preventing the NYPD from identifying the sources of the guns that are spilling the blood of their comrades and others before shootings occur?

The fight to restore law enforcement data to agencies, chiefs, mayors, and officers has now moved to the House floor. Supporters of police still hope to strip the provision from the appropriations bill. We urge Members of Congress to listen to the 230 mayors, 220 chiefs of police, and 32 state and national law enforcement agencies that have asked for this information to help them do their jobs better. Our legislators should stand behind our police, not in their way.

The House of Representatives should follow Rep. Patrick Kennedy’s lead and strip the Tiahrt provisions out of the appropriations bill.

I recently visited Chicago, where I met with the Reverend Jesse Jackson. On Saturday, I appeared at a series of events sponsored by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition calling for common-sense steps to end gun violence.

Hundreds of marchers, led by Rev. Jackson, converged on a suburban Chicago gun shop which has supplied hundreds of guns that were traced to crimes. We know from national data that most Federally-licensed gun dealers never sell even a single gun that’s used to commit a crime. When stores like Suburban Sporting Goods Ammo and Guns in Melrose Park, Illinois channel hundreds of crime guns into a community – 712 in a single four-year period – one has to question those business practices and procedures and whether they’re taking reasonable steps to help prevent dangerous people from getting guns.

Rev. Jackson and the community leaders who joined us on Saturday refuse to accept that 712 crime guns is just a cost of doing business.

A partial video of the event is available on YouTube.