Harry Tuttle
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- Joined
- Nov 14, 2003
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37008-2004Mar6?language=printer
Public Safety Under the Gun in Maryland
By Tim Maloney
Sunday, March 7, 2004; Page B08
This year Washington will observe the 10th anniversary of one its darkest
days. At 3:15 p.m. on Nov. 22, 1994, Bennie Lee Lawson Jr. walked into D.C.
police headquarters with a MAC-11 semiautomatic assault weapon. He went
upstairs to the "cold case" unit, where he was greeted at the desk by Sgt.
Henry Joseph "Hank" Daly, a 27-year D.C. police veteran. Daly asked Lawson
whether he needed help. Lawson mumbled something like "this is what it's all
about." Lawson pulled the weapon out of his jacket and shot Daly in the head
and face, killing him. Daly was married, with two grown children. Lawson
then sprayed the room with 20 bullets. FBI agent Michael John Miller drew
his gun but was shot several times and killed. Lawson then shot FBI Agent
John Kuchta in the chest, leg and kidney. Kuchta survived. Lawson also shot
a 15-year-old civilian in the leg.
FBI agent Martha Dixon Martinez tried to wrestle the assault weapon away
from Lawson, who grabbed her service revolver, shot and killed her with it,
and used it to kill himself. Martinez, 35, was married to Jorge Martinez, a
fellow FBI agent. Miller was 41 and had a wife and two children. Lawson had
intended to kill Capt. William "Lou" Hennessy, chief of homicide, and other
homicide detectives. A note in Lawson's belongings said: "Wanted dead,
Captain Hennessy & staff." Hennessy and other detectives had questioned
Lawson just weeks earlier about a triple murder. Police later confirmed
that, just 27 days earlier, Lawson and two others had invaded a home in the
Petworth section of the District. The three shot and killed an 89-year-old
retired federal worker, the man's granddaughter and a neighbor. Lawson had
already served 18 months in jail after being arrested, with five others, in
a raid that uncovered a military-style bulletproof vest, an Armalite AR-180
semiautomatic rifle, a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, an Intratec TEC-9, a Ruger
revolver and a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol.
Five months later, Prince George's police Cpl. John Novabilski was shot 11
times in the head with a converted MAC-11 while he sat in a marked cruiser.
Novabilski was survived by his wife, Karen. It was no coincidence that the
officers were killed by converted MAC-11s. The Israeli army developed it as
a quiet, rapid-fire combat weapon. It holds 34 cartridges in a single
magazine, and, if converted to automatic-fire mode, can fire 11 to 12 rounds
a second. The converted guns had just been outlawed under the federal
assault weapons ban, which took effect Sept. 13, 1994. At that time, assault
weapons were the gun of choice to kill police officers. Of the 92 killings
of police officers between Jan. 1, 1994, and Sept. 30, 1995, with
identifiable weapons, more than one-third involved assault weapons or guns
fitted with high-capacity magazines covered by the ban.
The federal assault weapons ban has forced such weapons out of the nation's
criminal culture. Since 1994, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives reports a 66 percent drop in reported use of assault weapons in
crimes. Police officials in Baltimore City and Prince George's County report
a dramatic drop in the prevalence of assault weapons in street crime. The
Justice Department attributes a 6.7 percent decrease in the murder rate to
the assault ban.
Which brings us to Annapolis. The federal law, which expires on Sept. 13,
won't be renewed by Congress, thanks to opposition from the National Rifle
Association. Sen. Rob Garagiola (D-Montgomery) and Del. Neil Quinter
(D-Howard) have sponsored a bill to extend the federal ban in Maryland.
Their bill prohibits the sale of guns that have two or more characteristics
of an assault weapon. The legislation also would ban weapons such as the
Bushmaster .223 AR-15 carbine assault rifle that Lee Boyd Malvo and John
Allen Muhammad used to kill 10 people and wound three others. But there is
one stumbling block: Sen. John Giannetti (D-Prince George's).
The legislation has the clear support of the majority of the Maryland House
and Senate and, according to most polls, overwhelming voter support. But it
first needs to get out of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, where
Giannetti is the deciding vote. Four years ago he posed with President
Clinton at the signing of state legislation requiring safety locks and
ballistic fingerprinting. Today he loves being lobbied by gun groups and the
Ehrlich administration, which want to kill the assault weapons ban.
Giannetti stunned fellow Democrats last month by announcing he would vote
against the assault weapons ban because the vote "would potentially hurt
conservative Democrats in their districts." I doubt that the Miller,
Martinez, Daly and Novabilski families care whether "conservative Democrats
are hurt in their districts."
Remarkably, Giannetti has never addressed the merits of the assault bill,
only the politics. Perhaps he might explain to these officers' survivors why
it would be good to allow converted MAC-11s to be legally owned in Maryland.
He could also explain to the families of the 13 sniper victims why the
Bushmaster .223 should be offered for sale in Maryland.
Tim Maloney is a practicing attorney in Greenbelt who served 16 years in the
Maryland legislature. His email address is [email protected].
Public Safety Under the Gun in Maryland
By Tim Maloney
Sunday, March 7, 2004; Page B08
This year Washington will observe the 10th anniversary of one its darkest
days. At 3:15 p.m. on Nov. 22, 1994, Bennie Lee Lawson Jr. walked into D.C.
police headquarters with a MAC-11 semiautomatic assault weapon. He went
upstairs to the "cold case" unit, where he was greeted at the desk by Sgt.
Henry Joseph "Hank" Daly, a 27-year D.C. police veteran. Daly asked Lawson
whether he needed help. Lawson mumbled something like "this is what it's all
about." Lawson pulled the weapon out of his jacket and shot Daly in the head
and face, killing him. Daly was married, with two grown children. Lawson
then sprayed the room with 20 bullets. FBI agent Michael John Miller drew
his gun but was shot several times and killed. Lawson then shot FBI Agent
John Kuchta in the chest, leg and kidney. Kuchta survived. Lawson also shot
a 15-year-old civilian in the leg.
FBI agent Martha Dixon Martinez tried to wrestle the assault weapon away
from Lawson, who grabbed her service revolver, shot and killed her with it,
and used it to kill himself. Martinez, 35, was married to Jorge Martinez, a
fellow FBI agent. Miller was 41 and had a wife and two children. Lawson had
intended to kill Capt. William "Lou" Hennessy, chief of homicide, and other
homicide detectives. A note in Lawson's belongings said: "Wanted dead,
Captain Hennessy & staff." Hennessy and other detectives had questioned
Lawson just weeks earlier about a triple murder. Police later confirmed
that, just 27 days earlier, Lawson and two others had invaded a home in the
Petworth section of the District. The three shot and killed an 89-year-old
retired federal worker, the man's granddaughter and a neighbor. Lawson had
already served 18 months in jail after being arrested, with five others, in
a raid that uncovered a military-style bulletproof vest, an Armalite AR-180
semiautomatic rifle, a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, an Intratec TEC-9, a Ruger
revolver and a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol.
Five months later, Prince George's police Cpl. John Novabilski was shot 11
times in the head with a converted MAC-11 while he sat in a marked cruiser.
Novabilski was survived by his wife, Karen. It was no coincidence that the
officers were killed by converted MAC-11s. The Israeli army developed it as
a quiet, rapid-fire combat weapon. It holds 34 cartridges in a single
magazine, and, if converted to automatic-fire mode, can fire 11 to 12 rounds
a second. The converted guns had just been outlawed under the federal
assault weapons ban, which took effect Sept. 13, 1994. At that time, assault
weapons were the gun of choice to kill police officers. Of the 92 killings
of police officers between Jan. 1, 1994, and Sept. 30, 1995, with
identifiable weapons, more than one-third involved assault weapons or guns
fitted with high-capacity magazines covered by the ban.
The federal assault weapons ban has forced such weapons out of the nation's
criminal culture. Since 1994, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives reports a 66 percent drop in reported use of assault weapons in
crimes. Police officials in Baltimore City and Prince George's County report
a dramatic drop in the prevalence of assault weapons in street crime. The
Justice Department attributes a 6.7 percent decrease in the murder rate to
the assault ban.
Which brings us to Annapolis. The federal law, which expires on Sept. 13,
won't be renewed by Congress, thanks to opposition from the National Rifle
Association. Sen. Rob Garagiola (D-Montgomery) and Del. Neil Quinter
(D-Howard) have sponsored a bill to extend the federal ban in Maryland.
Their bill prohibits the sale of guns that have two or more characteristics
of an assault weapon. The legislation also would ban weapons such as the
Bushmaster .223 AR-15 carbine assault rifle that Lee Boyd Malvo and John
Allen Muhammad used to kill 10 people and wound three others. But there is
one stumbling block: Sen. John Giannetti (D-Prince George's).
The legislation has the clear support of the majority of the Maryland House
and Senate and, according to most polls, overwhelming voter support. But it
first needs to get out of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, where
Giannetti is the deciding vote. Four years ago he posed with President
Clinton at the signing of state legislation requiring safety locks and
ballistic fingerprinting. Today he loves being lobbied by gun groups and the
Ehrlich administration, which want to kill the assault weapons ban.
Giannetti stunned fellow Democrats last month by announcing he would vote
against the assault weapons ban because the vote "would potentially hurt
conservative Democrats in their districts." I doubt that the Miller,
Martinez, Daly and Novabilski families care whether "conservative Democrats
are hurt in their districts."
Remarkably, Giannetti has never addressed the merits of the assault bill,
only the politics. Perhaps he might explain to these officers' survivors why
it would be good to allow converted MAC-11s to be legally owned in Maryland.
He could also explain to the families of the 13 sniper victims why the
Bushmaster .223 should be offered for sale in Maryland.
Tim Maloney is a practicing attorney in Greenbelt who served 16 years in the
Maryland legislature. His email address is [email protected].
