A good article in the Baltimore Sun
Gulliver was my first cousin. Murder in Baltimore is now very personal for me. And personally, I don't see how a gun offender registry in Baltimore helps me. I don't see how it would have helped Nate. I don't see how it would have helped Matthews, Arthur and Brown either. ... Excuse me, don't police and prosecutors already have that information? What would be in a gun offender registry that anybody with a computer couldn't get by going to the Web site www.courts.state.md.us? That's where I got the information about Taylor pleading guilty to handgun possession. I got the information about his guilty plea to drug distribution charges, too. That happened Jan. 8, 2003. Taylor was sentenced to six years with five years, 11 months and four days suspended. Once again Taylor got three years of supervised probation. Forgive me if I sound a little cynical, but what good is a gun registry if cops catch offenders and then the system doesn't cook 'em? Or doesn't give offenders any time, if they are cooked? The system had Taylor -- twice -- on gun and drug charges. Technically, the system cooked Taylor. He did plead guilty to the charges. Then he walked out of the courtroom and eventually committed murder.
Gulliver was my first cousin. Murder in Baltimore is now very personal for me. And personally, I don't see how a gun offender registry in Baltimore helps me.
I don't see how it would have helped Nate. I don't see how it would have helped Matthews, Arthur and Brown either.
...
Excuse me, don't police and prosecutors already have that information? What would be in a gun offender registry that anybody with a computer couldn't get by going to the Web site www.courts.state.md.us?
That's where I got the information about Taylor pleading guilty to handgun possession. I got the information about his guilty plea to drug distribution charges, too. That happened Jan. 8, 2003. Taylor was sentenced to six years with five years, 11 months and four days suspended. Once again Taylor got three years of supervised probation.
Forgive me if I sound a little cynical, but what good is a gun registry if cops catch offenders and then the system doesn't cook 'em? Or doesn't give offenders any time, if they are cooked?
The system had Taylor -- twice -- on gun and drug charges. Technically, the system cooked Taylor. He did plead guilty to the charges.
Then he walked out of the courtroom and eventually committed murder.
Gun control is useless if you can't control the criminals. Controlling the criminals is hard and takes effort. Most politicians and gun control advocates can't be bothered with actually having to do any work and instead try to punish the law abiding, which is easy.
People like Brian Miller and Paul Helmke are partially responsible for these kinds of atrocities. They spend great amounts of political capital to convince politicians that the best way to prevent this type of tragedy is to take guns from the innocent when a better course of action would be to punish the criminals and keep them in jail.
And part of the blame lies with you and me. We keep electing idiots into office who take no action when needed. Our "leaders" are nothing more than "followers", bending to the will of the polls, performing as little as possible and still collecting a fat pay check.