Baltimore Mayor Calls for Tougher Gun Laws, Interesting Fact Noted

While we support law enforcement (even if we call out their fobbles from time to time), we realize that crime in our nation’s cities remains a problem. But we found an interesting fact in a story in The Baltimore Sun, which noted how the city’s incoming mayor, Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake, is calling for tougher gun laws. The laws in this case we actually agree with, where use of a gun is added to a criminal’s charges when arrested (i.e. “use of handgun in commission of a crime”), but it is this passage that we found interesting:

“Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III tried to steer the focus back to the legislation, saying that 26 percent of the guns seized in Baltimore last year were long guns.”

This is notable because many cities make it so much harder to own handguns. In New York for example, you need a different permit for long guns (rifles and shotguns) as you do for handguns. Two different offices handle these permits, and these aren’t even located in the same borough of New York City let alone the same building.

Now we worry that the anti-gun zealots will use this as ammo to say, “all guns are bad,” but we’ll flip the argument and say, “see if criminals can’t get handguns they’ll use rifles,” and to make our point, “if they can’t use rifles, they’ll use bats, axes or sticks with a nail.” Criminals, in other words will use anything they can as a weapon.

Baltimore Police Commissioner Declares War on Guns

In a scene out of HBO’s The Wire, the police commissioner in Baltimore declared war on guns reports The Baltimore Sun. We praise the commissioner, and the Baltimore police department’s efforts to make the city safer. We just hope that “getting guns off the streets” doesn’t mean out of the hands of law-abiding citizens as well.

Baltimore Sun Compares Cities – But is it Apples to Oranges?

It is a tale of two cities indeed, and on first pass may seem especially biased, but give this blog post on The Baltimore Sun’s Web site a read: “London and gun crime.” The story notes that London has less gun crime:

“London, a city of about 7.5 million, has had 110 homicides this year, 17 of which involved guns. Baltimore, a city of about 640,000 has had 208 slayings so far this year, most with guns.”

But consider this passage:

“The Trident unit has 300 officers and a $44 million budget. Baltimore cops have about 70 homicide detectives investigating murder; the homicide unit has a budget of $5.3 million (the Criminal Investigation Division’s budget is $38 million).”

The blog post even notes that 40 officers are assigned to a single murder case in London, so is it the dedication to law enforcement that is really what keeps crime low?