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Seventh Response to ‘Del. Weldon Says, "I
can tell that Sarah Brady is a good woman"’ Phil Lee1Nov.
17, 2003 (rev. 12/29/04) [ Op Eds ] On Oct. 8, Del. Weldon (R) from District 3B published
the article "Guns And
Gun Violence" (or at link). The
issues and questions Del. Weldon raised were both Constitutional and
practical. This note is my third "practical" response to his
article and addresses gun control and crime. In the previous response,
I pointed to the CDC's announcement that they have no scientific evidence to
prove that gun control reduces violence (see announcement
or press
conference for the CDC admission) and other studies confirming those
conclusions. Gun control advocates are in denial about the effects of
the policies they promote. They throw out an endless series of excuses
for gun control failure in place after place. Typically, they will
blame surrounding jurisdictions. For
example, they will say, "The high levels of gun violence is not DC's
fault because Maryland and Virginia have lax gun control laws that allow all
those bad guns to come to DC," but they can't explain why Maryland and Virginia with their lax laws have lower crime than
DC. In place after place we hear the excuse used about neighbors lack
of cooperation while those neighbors have less crime. Maryland has stricter
gun control than all of its neighboring states and higher crime;
Massachusetts and New York are similarly higher in violent crime than free
Vermont (only Federal gun control regulations apply in Vermont). Gun control fails to promote public safety and that
understanding is gaining increasing recognition among enlightened political
leaders. For example, Representative Anne Northup (R-KY) recently wrote
a letter saying: "Although I was not in Congress when the ban
was enacted, I initially favored such a measure because it appeared that
there was a direct link between gang violence, multiple-death
shootings, and assault weapons. However, in the last ten years, studies
have been unable to show that the ban has significantly contributed
to declines in violent crime and many people believe that the
connection between the two is tentative at best." "For this reason, the prevalent sentiment
among Members of Congress is skeptical of the effectiveness of the 1994 ban, and
they see little reason why Congress should spend the effort to bring
up a bill that has not been shown to be effective." Statistics tells us that gun control fails, but does not
give insight about why it fails. It is worth trying to understand why
gun control fails in practical terms. The complete story requires
reading more extensively than possible here. Gun control fails because: 1. It is not directed at root causes of the crime
problem such as the profits from illegal drug trafficking or incompetence or
corruption in law enforcement (police, prosecutors, judges). To
illustrate incompetence or corruption, we point to a Baltimore Sun series of
articles which assert (among other things) that "70 percent of the 1,449 slayings in
Baltimore between January 1997 and December 2001 went unsolved, unpunished or
resulted in a light sentence for the accused. Those accused of first degree
murder were more likely to be exonerated or have their charges dismissed than
they were to be convicted as charged." (see "Justice Undone, A
murder defendant 3 times charmed," By Kimberly A.C. Wilson,
Jim Haner and John B. O'Donnell, October 1, 2002.) Another article states: An 18-month investigation by The Sun shows that
it was not the first such case to be left in God's hands. Rather, in a crisis
that has quietly mounted for more than five years, so many homicide cases are
now lost in court that the odds of getting away with murder in Baltimore are
stacked decisively in favor of the killer. Consider: Of the 1,449 killings committed
in the city between 1997 and the end of last year, 32 percent resulted in the
arrest and conviction of a suspect on murder charges, a computer-assisted
analysis shows. In the remaining 68 percent of
those murders, no one was ever arrested, or the people who were arrested
either went free or were sent to jail for short periods of time on lesser
charges. In 37 percent of the 1,449
murders, no one was ever charged; in 7 percent of the cases, a suspect was
charged but the charges were dropped; in 12 percent, the suspects were
acquitted in court; and in the remaining 12 percent, a suspect was convicted
of a lighter charge. On average, those defendants were sentenced to slightly
more than two years in jail. Because they had spent several
months in detention awaiting trial, this last group was typically eligible
for parole or immediate release on the day they were convicted. (see "Justice Undone, Cases
crumble, killers go free," By Jim Haner, Kimberly
A.C. Wilson and John B. O'Donnell, September 29, 2002.) A third article points to
wholesale neglect of existing mandatory sentences for gun crimes: Nearly three decades after Maryland set strict penalties for gun crimes, the law has had little impact in Baltimore. Three out of four people charged with handgun violence serve less than the mandatory five years." ... An analysis by The Sun of nearly 3,000 court records and interviews with criminologists, defense lawyers, prosecutors and judges reveals that fewer than one in four people charged with gun crimes will get the required five-year prison sentence. (see "Tough gun law, timid enforcement," Caitlin Francke, Baltimore Sun, Jan 30 2000. This article won a 2001 Gavel Award from The Maryland State Bar Association.) And the Sun has articles identifying powerful legislators, who are also criminal defense attorneys, as responsible for defeating sentencing and other judicial reforms. Do you see a conflict of interest here? For a sample, read Maryland Crime where there is a brief segment from a Washington Post story of Senate President Miller and former Senator Walter Baker cooperating to kill a judicial reform bill. 2. It ignores the more influential factors of
crime -- criminals have guns to aid in crime -- to steal, to deal drugs, to
defend and take drug territories and for many reasons of greed and financial
gain. While there is a buck to be made, criminals will always value
guns more than decent people and will get the guns they need no matter what
controls the government makes. Drugs, not guns, are the Driving
Factor for Crime in Maryland. To illustrate that point we
offer the article statements: Sixteen juveniles were killed during the first
six months of the year -- almost double the nine killed during the same
period last year. In 2000, eight juveniles were killed from January through
June. ... Police said that the juvenile homicide increase
might stem from more targeted killings of youth entrenched in the drug trade.
"We're seeing a lot more young people being
shot at point-blank range" and not in random cross-fire, said Col.
Edward C. Jackson of the city Police Department. City officials said they are struggling to turn
children away from the drug trade and violence. Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, the
city health commissioner, released statistics yesterday detailing 34 recent
juvenile shooting victims. The victims averaged nearly 16 years old; all
were black; 28 out of the 34 were boys; and 26 of the boys had criminal
records. They were arrested, on average, for the first time at nearly 12 1/2
years old, and averaged more than five arrests before they were shot. (see "O'Malley responds as youth killings rise, Number of homicides has
almost doubled compared with last year," July 11,
2002, Sun Staff) A second article states: Since the 1980s, Baltimore has ranked among the nation's top markets for heroin and cocaine. "Almost every one of
these people [murder victims] had a criminal record. That's a fact," Detective Carew said.
"The bulk of their charges were
related to drugs." From “Most Baltimore murder victims have criminal records,” John Biemer, ASSOCIATED PRESS, Washington Times 12/18/2001: In 1999, Maryland's Chief Medical Examiner recorded 324
drug overdose deaths in Baltimore (excluding alcohol) - 63 percent of all
such deaths in Maryland and more than the number of murders Baltimore
had in that year. The death
rate from drug overdose was approximately 51 per 100,000 and far higher than
deaths from violence with guns. So,
where is the outcry to ban drugs? 3. It wastes resources in
futile gestures such as gun bans, gun registration or shell casing imaging
affecting only decent people with laws having no impact on criminals. In 1988, Britain enacted a rigorous firearms
control law, reducing the number of legal gun owners by 22.4 per cent over
five years. In that same five-year period, violent crime rose by 30.6
per cent; robbery by 80.6 per cent; and robbery WITH A FIREARM by 117 per
cent. [British Home Office statistics, 1988-93] The UK banned handguns in 1997 but new Home
Office figures show that the number of crimes involving handguns has more
than doubled - from 2,636 in 1997/1998 to 5,871 in 2001/2002. The British
Parliament published the data: Number of recorded crimes
involving firearms (not just handguns)
In December, when Toronto police
chief, Julian Fantino, was asked about the escalation of firearm crimes in
his city, he said "a law registering firearms has neither deterred these
crimes nor helped us solve any of them." Even if a national registry could produce
information useful in preventing crimes, or even just solving them, it would
be at a loss to produce it on nine out of ten handguns used in Canadian
murders since those guns would not have been registered in the first
place. (source of this material is the Canadian Parliament record). In Canada, where handguns have been registered
since 1934, authorities are unable to identify a single crime solved with the
registration data base -- see the News
Release, 5/17/1996, which states: Today, Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville,
made available the Liberal government's response to his written question
which asked, "Since 1934, how many crimes, in total, have been solved
using the RCMP's Restricted Weapon Registration System?" Answering
on behalf of the Government, Solicitor General Herb Gray, stated: "The
statistics requested respecting the number of crimes that have been solved by
tracing the firearm back to the registered owner are not kept at this time
and are therefore not available." "Surely, the purpose of registering handguns
and other restricted firearms is to solve crime by tracing the firearms back
to the registered owner," asked Breitkreuz. "And, the RCMP doesn't
even keep these statistics?" 4. It allows politicians
to posture to hide the fact they are doing nothing effective to solve
violence problems. There is a reason Maryland is so
violent and that reason is the politicians who hold office and the people who
elected them. Hold the mirror up and look carefully at the person who
stares back -- it is that person who is responsible for our situation which
includes: Police officers being assaulted at 2.5
times the national rate: Statistics reported by the FBI
show that nationally, an average of 12.7% of law enforcement officers
were assaulted in the line of duty in 2000. In Maryland, 29.1% of
officers were assaulted, almost two and a half times the national rate (ref.
Table 35, pages 78 & 79, Law Enforcement Officers Killed and
Assaulted, 2000", FBI Uniform Crime Reports.) Maryland having a higher robbery
rate than any other state: Maryland has reported the
highest robbery rate in each annual FBI Uniform Crime Report since 1995 (the
first year of the Glendening-Townsend administration) including the most recent
report released in 2003 for the 2002 calendar year. Maryland's rate of
robbery has recently been nearly 180% of the national rate and higher than
all of the neighboring states. Maryland ranked sixth in the nation in violent crime in 1993, according to FBI data (released in 1994), while Virginia stood 35th among the 50 states. At that time, Maryland’s Gov. Parris Glendening's and Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s Commission On Gun Violence proposed a laundry list of new gun laws while Maryland treated violent criminals with light sentences, lax parole conditions, and easily evaded home detention conditions. Gov. Parris Glendening and Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend demanding tougher gun laws while doing almost nothing to enforce existing violent crime laws. Five years later the consequences of the Glendening-Townsend policies were summarized in the Baltimore Sun editorial (“Getting away with murder,” February 13, 1999) in part: Nearly 80 percent of those arrested
for Baltimore homicides last year were men and women under the age of
30. Most had long arrest records for
crimes ranging from gun violence and drug trafficking to robberies. Yet relatively few spent serious time in
jail. Getting off with multiple probations bolstered their sense of immunity,
made them more brazen and added to the violence they perpetuate. Now we hear once again the
call to ban a class of firearms (see link) by
Maryland politicians. Given the nature of our problems with public
safety, such a ban will do nothing for public safety -- worse than nothing
since it damages our Constitution and people's confidence in their
government. More importantly, it will reduce, again, the people's
ability to protect themselves from thugs. If you want to see where we
are all going, you have to read the article:
"Britain
A Nation In Fear Of Thugs And Thieves,"
Jul 7, 2003, Jeff Edwards and David Seymour, Daily Mirror where you will see: Britain is living in fear of
burglars, car thieves and muggers. A special survey by the Daily
Mirror reveals that law and order is now the greatest challenge facing Tony
Blair. People simply don't believe
Labour's claim that things are getting better. And that is not surprising as a
staggering one in five say they have been a victim of crime in the last 12
months. ... Concerns
have reached such a level, an incredible 39 per cent of the population are
scared to go out after dark. I
hope that Maryland's legislature surprises me this year and actually tries to
do something positive to halt its wave of violence. I'll be
watching. Every minute the Legislature spends on gun control, is a
minute avoiding Maryland’s problems. 1 Phil Lee has a PhD in Mathematics and is
active in Maryland politics to support the right of the people to keep and
bear arms. |