Councilman Polensek has ''long been a leader in pushing...[Cleveland] gun laws

On August 3, businessman and Ohio CHL-holder Bill Singleton was ambushed by three robbers outside his check-cashing business. Despite being mortally wounded, Singleton was able to return fire, fatally wounding one of his attackers. Two others are still at large.

In the hours that followed, friends and neighbors began weighing in on the anger and frustration they feel at begin so helpless in their neighborhood.

"It's not safe for any color, any race. It's not safe for nobody any more," said area resident Carolyn Johnson. "I got robbed on East 156th myself."

Ray Beverly, who manages the video store across the street, says he could have easily been killed like Singleton because he was just robbed at gunpoint and pistol-whipped the previous afternoon.

Cleveland City Councilman Mike Polensek (who represents Ward 11 where the attack occurred) was also quick to the cameras, expressing "outrage":

"Here's another, decent black businessman, an African-American businessman gunned down, for what, because he made an investment in our city," he said. "We are being preyed upon by predators and we have got to send a message to the predators that it's over. You can't continue to do this. We have to say to that hoodlum element that you are not going to get away with what you are doing. We're going to track you down."

But Polensek has a long history of support for gun control, and of consorting with activists who fought against the very law which now sends just this sort of message to criminals in Ohio.

Michael Polensek has been a member and leader of Cleveland City Council for nearly 30 years, and has built quite a history as a gun control advocate in the city's Public Safety Committee, even as city residents endured more and more crime.

A January 31, 1995 Cleveland Plain Dealer editorial stated that Polensek has "long been a leader in pushing through many of the city's current gun laws."

In December 2001, while most of the nation was focused on improving Homeland Security, Councilman Polensek was proposing a measure in city council which would declare BB and pellet guns as firearms.

Months later, May 6, 2002, his attempts at imposing another strict gun control law upon his constituents was met with success, when council passed the ordinance. Thanks to Polensek, Cleveland law now prohibits anyone younger than 18 from owning BB or pellet guns and forbids the toys in public places.

According to a news story at the time, Councilman Mike Polensek proposed the after 13-year-old Raymond Bozak was accidentally killed when he was hit by a BB fired by a prankster.

"I don't think any of us could even imagine the damage this type of weapon can do," Polensek told the media. "This is no longer a little pea shooter. These kill, and it's proven they kill."

Polensek's law applies only in Cleveland, but State Rep. Ed Jerse, a Euclid Democrat who was one of the most vocal opponents of Ohio concealed carry law, simultaneously proposed similar legislation for the entire state. That measure died in committee.

On September 30, 2002, Polensek co-sponsored an event with the Brady Campaign's Million Mom March, planting daffodils to commemorate victims of gun violence.

Participants said they sought to bring attention to what they called a growing threat of gun violence. But the Brady Campaign is well known for aggressively opposing laws which would allow defenseless citizens the legal right to bear arms for self-defense - exactly the type of law which Bill Singleton used to stop his attacker on August 2.

Despite a thorny past, there is some hope in Polensek's history that he might be able to "see the light" when it comes to legalized self-defense:

In a 1992 Washington Post story entitled "The Demise of the GOP Majority", Polensek described himself as a Democrat who voted Republican in presidential elections through the 1980s, a "conservative Democrat".

In 1995, Polensek, who at the time chaired the city's Public Safety Committee, tabled a measure which would have banned residents from owning inexpensive handguns, started a gun lock program, required safety education for gun owners, and required anyone owning more than 20 guns or 1,000 rounds of ammunition to obtain a special 'arsenal' registration. Polensek argued that such registrations would be public records, and that thieves could target holders of arsenal licenses.

Polsensek, described by the Plain Dealer as a gun owner, also argued that a proposed ban on inexpensive firearms would create a travesty in which law-abiding citizens, having owned such guns for years, are transformed overnight into criminals. He also questioned the law's enforceability, noting that although the city would prohibit its residents from possessing 'Saturday night specials,' it would have little power to keep non-residents from bringing in such weapons.

If the Michael Polensek of 2004 truly means to "send a message to the predators" which plague the defenseless people of Ward 11, he should call upon the Cleveland Plain Dealer to stop publishing names of law-abiding persons like Bill Singleton, oppose new attempts to pass gun control in Cleveland, lead efforts to repeal existing restrictions, and be vocal in counseling area businesses to post "concealed handgun licensees welcome" signs and to obtain concealed handgun licenses.

Otherwise, his words will ring quite hollow.

CONTACT COUNCILMAN MICHAEL POLENSEK

Related Story:
Days after Plain Dealer ''outing''; CHL-holder Bill Singleton is dead