INDIANAPOLIS — Today, after weeks of making Marion County voters wait for policy answers, Republican Jefferson Shreve has scheduled a campaign press conference on public safety. This comes more than a month and a half after Mayor Joe Hogsett announced his multifaceted gun safety and violence reduction plan in May.
Jefferson has been hiding from the local press for weeks because of his cozy relationship with the National Rifle Association, which gave him their highest rating – an ‘AQ’ grade during his 2016 campaign for State Senate. Jefferson has refused to release his NRA questionnaire from the 2016 race, which likely included his out-of-the-mainstream positions on common sense gun reforms and his position on state preemption of local gun safety measures. Indianapolis voters have the right to know how he answered.
Earlier this year, Jefferson’s campaign confirmed that he is an NRA member, meaning he has paid dues to an organization that is consistently lobbying Congress and the state legislature to reject common sense gun laws and expand access to assault weapons and permitless carry.
“No matter what Jefferson announces, nothing can hide the facts from Indianapolis voters,” Indiana Democratic Party Chair Mike Schmuhl said. “Jefferson’s record and actions have consistently shown that he is an ally of the gun lobby that is promoting dangerous laws like permitless carry that add guns to the streets and put law enforcement in danger.”
“There continues to only be one candidate that Indianapolis can trust to take on the gun lobby and fight for local control over these issues: Mayor Joe Hogsett. He has followed through on his commitment to hire 700 more police officers, and has raised recruit pay to one of the highest levels in the Midwest. Indianapolis can’t afford to reverse this progress by putting an NRA member in the mayor’s office.”
As a City-County councilor in 2015, Jefferson voted against a proposal to require reporting of stolen firearms to law enforcement along with every Republican on the council. And during his 2016 State Senate campaign, he ran multiple now-deleted ads touting his commitment to the 2nd Amendment.
The people of Indianapolis simply can’t trust Jefferson Shreve to do what is right, and protect neighborhoods from the gun laws coming out of the Statehouse.
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