Another liar in a position of power...DC "Chief"

[shield20]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy.../AR2007031402186.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns

Give Us Back Our Gun Law

By Cathy Lanier and Vincent Schiraldi
Thursday, March 15, 2007; Page A19

As lawyers in guarded courtrooms debate whether it is a good idea to preserve tough gun control in the District of Columbia, in the real world of the city's juvenile justice system, the jury is in. There is no single solution to the problems of youth crime, but strong gun control laws such as the one struck down last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit clearly make a difference.

The public needs to understand that young people get their hands on guns differently than adults do -- mainly by borrowing them from family members and friends or by buying them on the black market, according to a Justice Department study.

Back in 1995, the number of juveniles arrested for homicides in the District peaked at an alarming 14. Juvenile homicides peaked nationally about that time; in fact, between 1984 and 1994, homicides committed by juveniles increased threefold nationally. During that period, juvenile homicides involving handguns increased fourfold, while juvenile homicides in which handguns were not a factor remained unchanged.

Confronted with data such as these confirming the link between access to handguns and youth homicides, federal, state and local governments took action. In 1995, Congress made it a federal offense for juveniles to possess handguns. Jurisdictions around the country passed gun control ordinances and stepped up law enforcement efforts; Boston's Operation Night Light, for instance, made a priority of keeping guns out of the hands of children.

In 1995 the District already had one of the nation's toughest gun control laws, forbidding handgun possession in the home. This is the provision the appeals court recently overturned. But handguns still flowed easily into the District from neighboring states, fueling black-market sales and hampering the effectiveness of the city's in-home ban.

In 1995 and 1997 laws enacted in, respectively, Virginia and Maryland prohibited citizens from purchasing more than one gun per month, dramatically reducing illegal gun sales as supply was choked off. The number of handguns coming into the District from those states fell immediately after the laws were passed. Before Virginia passed its law, it was the No. 1 supplier of guns seized in crimes in the District. Once Virginia's law took effect, Maryland became the largest source of guns seized in D.C. crimes. In the year after Maryland passed its one-gun-a-month law, the number of Maryland guns seized in the District dropped from 20 to zero.

These bans on multiple gun sales in neighboring states choked off black-market sales, while the D.C. ban on guns in the home reduced the ability of youths to borrow guns from family and friends. The result? The number of juveniles charged with homicide in the District fell 86 percent from 1995 to 2006. In 1995, 14 of the 227 people charged with a homicide in the District, or 6 percent, were juveniles. Last year, only two out of 106 people (fewer than 2 percent) charged with homicides in the District were juveniles. Because easy access to cheap handguns disproportionately jeopardizes D.C. youths, laws that restrict such access disproportionately benefit youths.

No single factor can account for this substantial decline in homicides by D.C. juveniles. But to deny the impact of serious gun control laws and put guns back into children's homes would be misguided and dangerous. We hope the courts give us back an important tool to protect the safety of our youths and the residents of the District of Columbia.

Cathy Lanier is acting chief of the District's Metropolitan Police Department. Vincent Schiraldi is director of the District's Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services.

******************************************
NOTE: Citing FBI and other data sources, the {2006 National}Report demonstrates that the rate of juvenile violent crime arrests has consistently decreased since 1994 - just like all crime rates. And she failed to note crime rates NATIONALLY were near the highest in 1995 (peaked in '93), and LOWEST in 2004 (up a bit since then).

OK, so she is still quite proud of these results from the DC gun control experiment:
- in 2004, the murder rate in Washington DC was 55 percent higher than before the DC gun ban laws went into effect.
- Washington DC's overall homicide rate skyrocketed to eight times the national average
- Murder rates: 25 years after DC's ban: Washington, DC: 46.4 per 100,000; (2004) National average? 5.5 per 100,000


Last year they took roughly 2500 illegal guns off the street; wonder how many CRIMINALS they took off?

BUTT!!!!!!! THEN there is this:

http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20061116-111332-8159r_page2.htm

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
November 17, 2006
District slayings usually with gun.

Outgoing Police Chief Ramsey...
"We have tough gun laws, but most of our guns are coming from Virginia and Maryland"

NOTE THE DATE - 4 months ago THEY (MA, VA) were THE problem - NOW they are not??? ***?


Someone better get their stories straight, or GET OVER THEMSELVES, and realize GUNS AIN'T THE PROBLEM!



Another liar in a position of power - frigging sad. This is why we don't want "only the police and govt" to have guns - they can NOT be trusted!

 

[Outlaw Man]

I guess the Cathy and Vince forgot that when juvinile homicides peaked in 1995 was a year after some of the most stringent gun legislation was passed.



I hate to break it to them, but it doesn't matter if preserving tough gun control is a good idea or not - it's unconstitutional.

:banghead:

 

[shield20]

Yep - didn't even mention SHE TOOK AN OATH TO SUPPORT THE CONSTITUTION - wonder how much it takes to "buy" a police chief these days in DC?

 

[Shovelhead]

Figures lie and liars figure.....

DC has many, many "unsolved" crimes on the books.
The number of Juveniles arrested might have dropped.
But that is most likely due to the lack of witnesses (with NO means of self-protection thanks to the DC gun laws) willing to testify against the bad guys, than an ACTUAL drop in crime.

 

[LAR-15]

Why is she the acting chief?

What happenedto the real chief?

 

[shield20]

He was "outgoing" the end of last year - not sure where he went.

 

[LAR-15]

Okay.

 

[44Brent]

Cathy Lanier Is About to Become Washington's First Female -- and the Youngest -- Chief of Police

March 9, 2007 — No one has worked harder on a tougher beat than Cathy Lanier. She is about to become the nation capital's chief of police — the first woman to achieve that post, and, at 39, the youngest.

"There's never been a female chief here in Washington, D.C.," she said, "so the thought [of becoming chief] just didn't enter my mind."

Lanier was raised by a single mother and dropped out of high school at 14 to have a baby. She married the father but was soon divorced and became a single mom at the age of 18. Somehow, she managed to get her high school equivalency diploma.

"My mother kinda raised me to handle things one of two ways," she said. "If the situation's tough, you can sit back and think about how tough it is, or you just think of it as a challenge and move on. So I just never sat back and felt sorry for myself and thought it was something that would end my life. Never felt sorry for myself."

There wasn't time, raising a son while working full-time as a secretary and a waitress. Eventually, she became a cop and a college student.

"I came on the police department when I was 23, and the police department [had] a tuition reimbursement program," she said. "And that was my best chance for college, because I never could have afforded it any other way."

But the job was extremely demanding. Walking the beat in the nation's capital can be dangerous.

"I've been involved in a few physical altercations," she said. "I joke all the time, but it really is true I grew up in a house with two older brothers, so if nothing else I learned how to take a punch pretty well. But it's part of the job."

Competing with the male majority on the force never fazed her.

"And I actually outperformed most male police officers," she said. "I made more arrests than most police officers in my district consistently for about five years."

Rising through the ranks, she faced sexual harassment from the men in her precinct — yet another obstacle Cathy Lanier has had to overcome.

"Severe harassment," she said. "Physical contact. It was done very out in the open. I was — I hate to say I was fortunate in a sense. But most sexual harassment goes on behind closed doors. But the culture of our department at that time was that it wasn't even hidden. It was done out in the open. And because of that, there were a lot of witnesses."

Lanier filed formal complaints but nothing came of them. So she sued the force, and she won.

Lanier has never stopped her education both on and off the job. She has earned not one but two master's degrees from Johns Hopkins, one in homeland security.

"I just love school," she said. "I can't say that its been a drive to hang paper on the wall, but I love school. … The education made me a better police officer. It enhanced the way I did my job as I moved up into management ranks."

And move up she did. But at heart, she's still a street cop, one who learned early on how to make her hard work pay off.

"I worked just as hard," she said. "I did everything that everybody else did. I didn't expect any special treatment or anything different, and I think that's what establishes the reputations.

"Police departments are very traditional, and you establish your reputation very early on and that [is] the reputation that you keep," she added. "And I was smart. At 23, I finally got smart and I came in and I established the right reputation."

 

[MechAg94]

Don't FFL's have to report sales of multiple guns? I was thinking I had heard that if you buy more than 1 handgun at a time, the FFL has to report it. Maybe not.

 

[bumm]

The best part of her limp-wristed, whining article pleading to have her "law back" is the comments that follow. 100% well reasoned and AGAINST her point of view!
Marty

 

[44Brent]

Here's a neat little web site where you can send questions and comments to the big wheels in D.C.

Ask the Mayor

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