Baltimore's top prosecutor is heading to Annapolis to push state lawmakers to pass stronger gun laws. Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy says she plans to appear today at a Senate hearing to recommend expanding a no-parole law that she says has helped cut violent crime. Under the 2000 law, convicted felons charged with gun possession face a mandatory no-parole penalty of five years in prison. The state's attorney is pushing to increase sentences in some cases up to 15 years, expand the list of prohibited firearms to include rifles and long guns, and ban felons from possessing ammunition. Jessamy says Baltimore prosecutors have obtained hundreds of no-parole sentences for violent felons caught with firearms, which she says has led to a drop in gun crime.
Jessamy to ask for stronger gun laws
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reds147 at 5:07 PM March 11, 2010
afmca....You think getting rid of guns will make everything better ?..The D.C. Gun band that was in use for 30 some years...was one of the strictest in the Nation....it didn't work..crime in D.C was one of the worse in the Nation,,.look at all the drug laws on the books..drug abuse and use is worse then anytime in history...Your not going to stop thugs getting guns...a thug can kill with a knife...ball bat...chain...club...car....would you have all of those banded as well ?....
bigfootsix06@yaho... at 10:21 AM March 11, 2010
Finally, a response to so-called "gun violence which we can all get behind, one that is truly,"common-sense." The basic reality of criminolgy, going bact to the Nineteenth pioneers of Sociology, and daily confirmed by our day-to-day experience, is that most crime ios committed by, surprise!--criminals.
It is childish to think that someone doing armed robbery, and ready and willing to do murder, is fazed by a threat of a five-year gun charge. What is needed is not "deterrence," but incapacitory incarceration--locking them up until they are too old to run fast. Every day they are inside is a day they are not preying on their fellow-citizens. The solution is not so-called "gun control," but critter control. We may shout at one another forever over whether more or fewer guns means more or less crime, but there is no question that fewer criminals means less crime.
afmca at 9:14 AM March 11, 2010
Unfortunately even common sense gun laws are no longer possible in America. The NRA and the inmates are now in control of the insane asylum and their irrational fears have overruled common sense. Guns, guns, and more guns. Have 10; you need 20. Got 20; 50 is better. Get those guns that will blast through solid rock or maybe bring down low flying aircraft. The bottom line is people WITH guns kill people. We have to keep the gun manufacturers profitable. Our society's fascination with things that go bang is a sure sign of our immaturity ... but I don't hold up much hope that sudden maturity is on the horizon. Only a real disaster that shows that the NRA and its supporters are assisting the supply of guns to the criminals and terrorists by their irrational aversion to any gun bills will finally make responsible adults retake the asylum.
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