Crime Scenes: City leaders press for tougher gun laws (MD)

[jpak]

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-02-10/news/bs-md-hermann-city-gun-testimony-20110210_1_gun-laws-gun-legislation-gun-crime

In what by now might seem a futile ritual, Baltimore's mayor and top law enforcement officials made their seventh annual pilgrimage to Annapolis on Thursday to press lawmakers for tougher gun laws that they say will curtail violence in one of America's deadliest cities.

In past years, proposed legislation either stalled in committee, or, as happened last year, successfully made it to the full legislature but not in time for a vote before the session ended.

The latest bills — which would add 10 years to the five-year mandatory sentence for a felon in possession of a handgun and make illegal gun possession a felony with a mandatory 18-month sentence — might have a hard time this year as well.

Worried that lawmakers view the bills as restricting the rights of Marylanders even if they help imprison gunmen in Baltimore, city leaders tried to broaden their appeal with testimony from a wide array of personalities, hoping to sway opinions with both lawyerly prose and by tugging at heartstrings.

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Who would oppose longer jail sentences for felons convicted of illegally carrying guns?

Assholes like Wayne LaPierre

yup

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

1. What else was in the legislation... some kind of poison pill?

I agree with making sentances mandatory... maybe even increasing them as well.
I think it's BS that criminals can basically bargain and lead away the mountains of charges they are guilty of.
What's the point in writing legislastion that *actually* targets criminals if the charges always get dissolved?!?

[sharesunited]

2. Do big city mayors just not understand how life is made better with guns and ammo?

How is it that they suffer from the same delusion that guns and ammo are a menace?