Helmke On ABC's Topline

Paul Helmke was a guest on ABC New's Topline webcast on Friday. The interview with Helmke starts at about the 4:22 mark.

The best part of the interview was when Jonathan Karl asks Helmke, "Why have you guys been losing this debate for so long?" Helmke never answered the question and admitted their high watermark for gun control was in the first two years of the Clinton Administration.

Unlike most media interviews, Helmke is not let off easily. Karl notes that the 111th Congress seemed the most pro-NRA in his memory even though it was so Democratic. He later questions Helmke on his insistence that the public want more gun control saying "47% (of a poll) is a mandate for more gun control?"

When Helmke says that the Democratic Caucus is more favorable now towards gun control because those Democrats "who played footsy with the NRA lost", Karl responds that while they may be more pro-gun control there are a lot less Democrats than before.