Once again, where to begin? Do I start with the highly-opinionated but desperately uninformed woman who is attempting to justify the carnival of errors regarding the Baltimore riots of 2015 ("Lame arguments hurt officers' defense," June 12)? Or do I comment on the deliberately misleading editorial concerning handgun legislation in Maryland ("How to reduce gun violence," June 12)?
This letter writer would have the entire police force "retrained" because the officers failed to understand and take into action the state's attorney's "request" for immediate and active enforcement, specifically and exactly where the "questionable arrest" was made! I have news for this self-appointed expert on police procedures: That "request" by the state's attorney was for immediate, visible, pro-active, deterrent-designed action. It is obvious that Police command understood the request as it was apparently correctly disseminated to the officers on the street. Essentially, it said: "Take immediate action and keep records of that action."
This was not a request "to develop informants," it was a request for specifically targeted and immediate action! The process by which reliable informants are developed is a slow and tedious one, requiring time and effort. The state's attorney called for immediate action. I would wager that there was already a pool of informants. The regular post officers have their informants as well as the narcotics detectives operating from "downtown." Again, evidence of this is clearly obvious as the officers recognized the deceased as a known drug dealer. As to the legality of the pursuit and detention, that too is defensible! The Supreme Court has ruled that the officers have legal standing to pursue and detain individuals who run away merely upon eye contact with the police. That action is further substantiated when the area in question is a high-crime area and when the fleeing person is known to have a criminal record associated with that type of crime. Once such an individual has been apprehended, police procedure allows the officers to, in the interest of their personal safety, conduct a search, usually a "pat down" for possible deadly weapons. In such circumstances, illegal possession of a weapon may be charged when they are found as the apprehension and subsequent detention was legal.
Meanwhile, here we go again with gun control. I immediately step back when I am told that this "study" was predicated, not upon hard fact, but rather upon a "model" which was obviously created to generate the desired outcome of the bogus study. The recent spate of murders in Baltimore clearly indicates the ineffectiveness of more gun control legislation. For all of the immense pool of knowledge possessed by the liberals, one would think that they could understand one simple fact: Only law-abiding people obey the law while criminals are criminals because they do not obey the law. Law-abiding gun owners are not murdering people with their guns, criminals are doing that so how then will more laws result in the desired effect? How does disarming law-abiding gun owners who are committing no crime result in a reduction of crime which the criminals, not them, are committing? And, what percentage of those guns seized from criminals were legitimately purchased by them from reputable sources?
Enforce existing laws, that is the answer, not more misdirected laws that leave honest citizens undefended. If a gun dealer knowingly sells a gun to a criminal, let the hand of the law fall swiftly and with great force upon him. Loss of his federal firearm license forever, fines and even prison time is called for. Similarly, any citizen who knowingly purchases a firearm for a criminal should face the same severity of punishment. In summary, destruction of the Second Amendment is not the solution to gun-related crime, personal accountability is the solution. The Supreme Court has ruled that the police cannot be held accountable for the protection of individual citizens. If not the police, who is it that will protect us, if not ourselves? And those liberal politicians who want to disarm the people have their own armed bodyguards and, in many instances, carry personal firearms themselves! I do not demand that they give up that protection and they should not demand that of "The People!" Inevitably these politicians assert that their lives have been threatened and that they are "important" public figures. Is that so? These "important" politicians are my employees, they work for me and I pay their salary. Since when is the security of the employee any more important than the security of their employer?
Robert L. DiStefano, Abingdon