baltimore mayor want gun offender registry

[Mikebnice]

"city residents convicted of gun offenses to report their addresses to the police - much like the state's sex offender registry"
Is this the begining of gun registry
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/lo...may03,0,3581796.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

City targets guns
Mayor outlines initiative to cut back violence by reducing illegal firearms
By Annie Linskey
Sun reporter

May 3, 2007

Contending that Baltimore's struggle against violence needs to refocus on illegal guns, Mayor Sheila Dixon laid out yesterday a series of initiatives aimed at reducing the number of weapons on the city's streets.

"We're going to have to curb the violence in this city by going after these illegal guns," Dixon said. "I don't know how more plain and simple I can make it."

Surrounded by almost 300 sawed-off shotguns, revolvers and semiautomatic handguns seized in April, Dixon proposed re-forming a city police gun unit to trace illegal weapons back to the sellers; requiring city residents convicted of gun offenses to report their addresses to the police - much like the state's sex offender registry; and tracking data on gun arrests, convictions and sentences with a new program dubbed GunStat.

"We all know that the most serious criminals in Baltimore rely on illegal guns to intimidate and harm others," Dixon said.

Referring to the new gun offender registry - which would require approval from the City Council - Dixon said: "This is going to mean some extra work for our police. But we are all in this together."

Dixon insisted that her proposal would not target legal gun owners. "We're not saying that you can't own one," she said.

Ninety-three people have been killed in Baltimore this year - all but 13 from gunshot wounds. Nonfatal shootings have increased, from 176 in 2006 to 233 as of yesterday afternoon.

Police Commissioner Leonard D. Hamm pledged that the new plan will "help us stem this wave of violence that is in the city."

"We started off by going after people. We are going after these instruments that they use to commit violence in this city," he said.

As Hamm and Dixon spoke, hundreds of guns - some customized, some well-maintained and others rusty - were displayed on tables in the lobby of the downtown police headquarters. Crime lab technicians had propped rifles and shotguns against the walls. The collection included tiny pistols that could be concealed in a fist and a machine gun with a silencer.

The proposals drew immediate questions from the head of the city's police union, who has criticized understaffing of the department and wondered how much more work would now be handed to officers. "Where did they find the extra police sitting around?" Paul Blair asked. "Where are we going to find these people to do [the tracking]?"

Blair said the city police unit tasked with tracking down sex offenders is already short of officers.

About the new GunStat proposal, he said: "We have budget stat. Crime stat. City stat. How many stats do we need?"

"Somebody has to spend some time putting all of these 'stats' together," he said.

A spokeswoman for the National Rife Association did not return calls for comment on Dixon's plan.

City Councilman Keiffer J. Mitchell, who is running for mayor, declined to comment on the proposal but said he intends to unveil his own crime strategy soon.

Elements of the mayor's proposal will require changes to city and state laws. City Council President Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake, who stood next to Dixon during yesterday's announcement, said that passing the gun registry legislation would be a "significant priority" for the council this year - though it was unclear yesterday what penalties might be imposed for violations.

Dixon said she will also lobby the state General Assembly to stiffen sentences for those who allow guns to enter the black market. At present, the offense is a misdemeanor that carries a five-year maximum prison sentence.

The city police identified six officers to staff the new gun squad, and Hamm said that he has a verbal commitment from the state police to move five troopers to city police headquarters to investigate cases against gun traffickers. The city's squad will be led by Sgt. Richard A. Willard, a 15-year veteran.

Building cases against gun stores or individuals who sell weapons to criminals is tricky and labor-intensive: Police typically have to witness illegal or improper sales.

"Do I have the manpower to do it? I do not," Hamm said. "When I bring a little bit to the table, and [other agencies bring] a little bit to the table, then I have much better control over that."

Frederick H. Bealefeld III, the deputy police commissioner, insisted that it's worthwhile to target the secondary gun market, despite the significant amount of police work that's required and the low penalties currently in place for convictions.

"Doggone right it is worth it," he said. "A huge number of guns are coming to Baltimore through the illegal secondary transfer."

He raised his voice: "There are people with legitimate jobs carrying on their lives, and they seem unaffected by fueling this violence in Baltimore."

Margaret T. Burns, a spokeswoman for the city state's attorney's office, said that her office has not received a secondary gun purchase case since the Police Department disbanded its gun unit about five years ago.

Police declined yesterday to estimate how many of the illegal guns seized in the city came from Maryland sources.

But Daniel Webster, who consulted on the mayor's plan and is a co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said that 70 percent of the guns used in city crimes were sold by Maryland gun dealers in 2003, the last time that gun trace data were available.

Webster studied efforts to suppress black market gun sales in several Midwestern cities, including Chicago and Detroit. "After these enforcement initiatives were launched, the flow of new guns into the market declined substantially," he said.

The exception, he said, was Gary, Ind. "They didn't really target the dealers," he said. "They didn't do any prosecutions and get the message out. You have to do this with publicity."

Dixon also wants to create a new data-gathering tool called GunStat. "This will allow for better supervision of violent criminals. Illegal guns and the criminals who have them are a serious threat," she said.

Hamm said that the data likely will not be made public because it might compromise broader investigations against people and stores that have questionable sales practices.

Dixon said she does not expect that any of her proposals will require substantial additional city funding: "We're just going to be doing it a little smarter, a little better."

Gun proposal

Mayor Sheila Dixon proposed a series of initiatives yesterday to target illegal guns, including:

• Re-forming a police gun unit to trace illegal weapons back to sellers

• Creating a registry of city residents convicted of gun offenses

• Tracking data on gun arrests, convictions and punishment through GunStat

• Lobbying to toughen sentences for illegal gun sales

 

[MachIVshooter]

city police gun unit to trace illegal weapons back to the sellers

And exactly how does one go about doing this? The very nature of their being illegal means that there is no paper trail.....................

Then again, when has an anti ever used their brain before their mouth?

 

[Beachmaster]

Sheila Dixon is one of the worst kind of polliticians ever. She is a self serving and corrupt loser.

Currently, she and the rest of the City Council are under investigation by the State and feds, acussed of public-corruption when she was the Council President. Just so you know, she was not elected to Mayor, but became the Mayor when the former Mayor Martin O'Malley became Govenor. She will fill out the rest of his term.

In Baltimore, she and the council like to practice what folks call "back door politics". I'll quote a paragraph from the Baltimore City Paper in a story about Joan Floyd, a candidate for the City Council.

The trouble with Baltimore government, she says, decisions are made in secret in violation of the state’s open-meetings laws. Floyd and her husband, Doug Armstrong, have been among a small group of citizens who have pushed their way into the so-called “pre-meetings” of the City Council and Board of Estimates. These meetings, typically held in a small office to discourage public observation, are where the decisions get made. The public meetings, where the official votes are taken, are often rushed, pro forma affairs, Floyd says.

Sheila and her partners in crime see nothing wrong with holding "secret" meetings not open to the public, and "sham" public meetings where citizen input is not heard.

If Sheila really wanted to reduce crime in Baltimore, she would stop her own public-corruption, and end the corrupt politics on the City Council!

 

[Norton]

It is part of the continuing effort to equate gun owners with criminals.

They've corrupted the term "militia" to be white supremacists, they've made us all out to be minions of the evil NRA Illuminati ( ), and now they're going to create a gun offender registry that equates us with sex offenders.

In a state like MD, you're pretty much in violation of a gun law no matter how much effort you put into being compliant. I mean, if you stop to take a leak on the way back from the handgun range you could be put on this "registry" and marked for life just as if you were diddling little boys.

 

[romma]

Every convicted "gun offender" in said database will have to consent to random searches, and notify change of adress upon relocating... More than likely that is...

 

[offthepaper]

Surrounded by almost 300 sawed-off shotguns, revolvers and semiautomatic handguns seized in April,

--------------------------------------------------------------

I'd be willing to bet an awful lot of these "300" were legaly owned by law abiding citizens and confiscated for some sham reasons. In Md. they are always looking for a reason/excuse to round up ALL the guns they can. If they're having that kind of success getting illegal guns off the streets in B'more, than why is the murder rate fom all the bangers continue to climb?
Dixon and the rest of the city gov't =

 

[El Tejon]

I demand we register all politicians and media members.

These two groups have done far more damage than anyone's guns.

 

[JoshM]

New Database

I'm surprised that the Baltimore PD do not already have access to the equivalent data on "gun offenders" ?

Such data should already be available due to the fact that persons convicted of offenses:

• 
  are automatically in the criminal justice system;and

• 
  are required to update/notify the authorities of change of address for parole requirements.

The new database I guess will capture/record x cons who have been released, with their parole conditions finished, and x cons who are new Baltimore residents honest enough to do the required paperwork.

The proposed database seems to offer few tools for a city with scarce funding for LE purposes. The fact that the proposal seeks to also reform an "illegal gun sellers" unit, begs the question why it was disestablished in the first place ? I'm guessing huge man hours, with few resulting prosecutions.

But Daniel Webster, who consulted on the mayor's plan and is a co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said that 70 percent of the guns used in city crimes were sold by Maryland gun dealers in 2003, the last time that gun trace data were available.

Webster studied efforts to suppress black market gun sales in several Midwestern cities, including Chicago and Detroit. "After these enforcement initiatives were launched, the flow of new guns into the market declined substantially," he said.

There was a anti gun conference recently. I expect Baltimore officials and Mr Webster were present. Another example of public policy crafted from a dinner and a few chest thumping speakers !