Stunning Successes of Policing in Baltimore this Year

[MKSheppard]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investig ... ba2ae81d4d

As police struggle to solve homicides, Baltimore residents see an ‘open season for killing’
By Wesley Lowery , Steven Rich and Salwan Georges
December 27

BALTIMORE — Daphne Alston used to go to every funeral.

A co-founder of Mothers of Murdered Sons and Daughters United, Alston has worked with hundreds of families here, helping them navigate the pain, paperwork and logistics that come with each killing. But recent years have brought such a spike in violence that there are now too many funerals for Alston to attend. She has enlisted other members of her group to help her with outreach to the families of the slain, sometimes going to three or four funerals each day of the weekend.

A key component of that outreach was once helping families endure the legal proceedings that followed — and sitting next to them during the trials. But this year the court cases are scant. Alston knows of just a few killings for which anyone has been arrested.

As Baltimore has seen a stunning surge of violence, with nearly a killing each day for the past three years in a city of 600,000, homicide arrests have plummeted. City police made an arrest in 41 percent of homicides in 2014; last year, the rate was just 27 percent, a 14 percentage point drop.

Of 50 of the nation’s largest cities, Baltimore is one of 34 where police now make homicide arrests less often than in 2014, according to a Washington Post analysis. In Chicago, the homicide arrest rate has dropped 21 percentage points, in Boston it has dropped 12 points and in St. Louis it is down 9.

Baltimore is also one of 30 cities that have seen an increase in homicides in recent years, with the greatest raw number increase in killings of any city other than Chicago, which has four times the population. While homicide rates remain near historical lows in most American cities, Baltimore and Chicago are now both seeing murder tallies that rival the early 2000s.

[See Baltimore in The Post’s homicide database]

The wave of violence here began not long after the April 2015 death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man arrested in West Baltimore and placed — hands cuffed and legs shackled — in the back of a police van. There, he suffered a severe neck injury and lost consciousness. He died in the hospital about a week later.

Gray’s death prompted massive protests that at times turned to riots. The years since have come with a documented officer slowdown — patrol officers say they are hesitant to leave their vehicles and have made fewer subjective stops of people on Baltimore’s streets. That, coupled with a crisis of police legitimacy as residents express distrust and frustration with the force, has fueled a public safety emergency in parts of the city, community leaders say.

“It’s an open market, open season for killing,” said Alston, whose son Tariq was murdered in 2008. “After Freddie Gray, things just went berserk.”

A dramatic shift in 2015

While there is evidence for and against a nationwide Ferguson effect — the theory that crime increased after 2014 as police faced more scrutiny following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. — in Baltimore there is an indisputable Freddie Gray effect. As violence in the city has risen since 2015, the likelihood of a killer being arrested has dropped precipitously.

For most of the decade before 2015, Baltimore’s annual homicide arrest rate hovered at about 40 percent. Since 2015, the arrest rate hasn’t topped 30 percent in any year. And while most cities saw their arrest rates drop gradually, Baltimore’s decline was sudden — plummeting 15 percentage points in 2015, after Gray’s death, the largest single-year drop for any city already solving less than half its homicides.

“Our clearance rate isn’t what I think it should be,” Baltimore Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle, who has been running the department on an interim basis since May, said in an interview. “We’ve got a really, really talented homicide unit, but we’re understaffed.”

Tuggle, who noted that violent crime is down from its peak levels last year, said that the depressed arrest rate is due to a combination of factors. In many cases, detectives struggle to find cooperative witnesses. Police grapple with community relationships still deeply singed by the unrest that followed Gray’s death. And, perhaps most crucial, the department’s homicide detectives are overwhelmed.

Each Baltimore detective, on average, now is responsible for nine homicide cases and, with other suspicious deaths factored in, about 31 total active cases, Tuggle said.

A Post analysis of homicides nationwide found that major police departments that have success in making arrests generally assign detectives fewer than five cases a year.

“Our average caseload per detective is far higher than it should be,” Tuggle said. “Generally, if we can’t clear a case and get it off of the board within the first 25 days, chances are it’s going to be a lot longer. If we can ever get it off of the board at all.”

Community leaders and residents say that leaves hundreds of families who have been robbed of a loved one without a chance at seeing justice done. Of the 1,002 homicides between 2015 and the beginning of this year, just 252 — one out of every four — resulted in an arrest.

“It’s a cold case,” said Cynthia Bruce, whose son Marcus Tafari Samuel Downer, 23, was shot and killed in Baltimore in July 2015. “They have a suspect and the detective is confident that someone witnessed my son’s murder, but people are scared to come forward because of retaliation.”

Downer died in Northwest Baltimore, near his grandmother’s home. Bruce said that the word on the street is that her son had jokingly messed with — either kicking or sitting in — a neighborhood child’s stroller, prompting someone to summon the child’s father. When the father arrived, he brought a gun, Bruce said she has heard from neighbors.

“My son was killed senselessly and the person is just walking freely as if nothing happened,” Bruce said.

The killings, both solved and unsolved, are clustered in a small number of the city’s neighborhoods — even as the citywide homicide rate has soared, there are neighborhoods that are safer today than they were before Gray’s death in 2015.

The ‘butterfly’ effect

The neighborhoods that have seen the most violence are familiar to social scientists and experts in Baltimore: They fall within what is known as the city’s black “butterfly,” a set of neighborhoods that spread out to the east and west of the city’s center.

Homicides have soared in several neighborhoods since Gray’s death. Sandtown-Winchester, where Gray died, has seen 22 more homicides in the three-year period since Gray’s death than it did in the three years before he died. Southwest Baltimore saw its homicides rise by 35, and Greater Rosemont has seen 26 more since 2015.

In each of those neighborhoods, police make an arrest in fewer than 25 percent of cases, including 16 percent in Sandtown-Winchester.

These areas long have been among the city’s most economically depressed and, because of years of residential segregation, populated almost exclusively by low-income black residents.

“This structural violence contributes to the street violence that we see,” said Lawrence Brown, a Morgan State University professor who coined the term Baltimore butterfly in 2015. “What hypersegregation does is that it distorts social dynamics. You don’t have resources in these communities, and people have to fight for every little crumb. And then comes the violence that ends up on the evening news.”

“This boils down to the relationship between communities and police,” said Tara Huffman, director of criminal and juvenile justice programs at Open Society Institute-Baltimore. “They need people to come forward, they need people to answer the door when they knock, and they need people to talk to them on the scene.”

“You cannot coerce that,” she said. “You can beg and plead all you want to. If the relationship is screwed up, you’re simply not going to get the help that you need to solve these crimes.”

And those relationships, never great, have been further damaged within a few tumultuous years.

[In many homicides, police believe they know the killer’s identity but can’t get a witness to cooperate]

First came Gray’s death. Then state’s attorney Marilyn J. Mosby announced that she would charge six of the officers involved, enraging the local police union and, some local leaders say, further encouraging officers to police less actively. Many Baltimore community leaders fear that shift helped drive the uptick in violence.

Prosecutors failed to secure a single conviction in the case — abandoning the prosecutions after a mistrial and two acquittals — prompting a new round of anger from residents who wanted to see officers held accountable.

In the meantime, city and police department leaders were locked in tense negotiations with the U.S. Justice Department, which launched an investigation after Gray’s death and ultimately concluded that Baltimore police regularly violated residents’ civil rights.

“This is a city where law enforcement has felt massively under siege, and where there was one of the worst police killings ever for which there was no accountability,” said Phil Goff, president of the Center for Policing Equity, which works with police departments across the country.

Then another policing scandal arose: Eight members of an elite “Gun Trace Task Force” pleaded guilty or were convicted in federal court of widespread abuses across Baltimore. An investigation found that officers set people up for baseless searches, stole property and money from residents, and carried toy guns to plant on people.

“All of the things that could happen to a police department to create a culture of murder with impunity are all happening in Baltimore,” Goff said.

The department also was grappling with near-constant leadership upheaval, including three police commissioners just this year.

As the murder rate soared, Mayor Catherine Pugh (D) fired Police Commissioner Kevin Davis in January and replaced him with Darryl De Sousa, who in turn resigned just four months later after facing federal charges of failing to file tax returns. De Sousa later pleaded guilty to the charges.

Tuggle has run the show since May as an interim commissioner. The mayor’s choice to replace him, current Fort Worth Police Chief Joel Fitzgerald, is awaiting city council confirmation but the secretive process by which he was selected has raised skepticism that was further stoked when he refused to provide the Baltimore Sun with a copy of his résumé.

“We have an unstable department,” said Ray Kelly, chief executive of the No Boundaries Coalition of Central West Baltimore, an activist group that has been involved in police reform efforts. “It’s just a whole lot of chaos that we have to get beyond before we can start seeing any change.”

Tuggle acknowledged that the leadership shake-ups have had some impact on the department’s ability to prevent and solve crime.

“The department really needs a level of continuity, and I’m really hopeful that going forward they’ll get that,” he said.

Tuggle also emphasized strides he believes the beleaguered department has made in the months since he took over. He said homicides are down about 10 percent from last year, and that in recent months violence has begun to decline even in some of the city’s most difficult zones.

For that, Tuggle credits the city’s violence reduction initiative, in which city agencies work to focus social services and resources on the city’s most violent neighborhoods, meeting at 8 a.m. daily to strategize.

“I certainly see the relationship between the community and the police improving. I’ve seen substantial improvement since I’ve been here,” Tuggle said. “There is a sense of urgency on the police department’s part to get justice for each and every victim that is out there.”

But as cases go unsolved, a growing roster of family members of the slain are frustrated with what often feels to them like an inadequate effort to bring them closure.

“When people have been traumatized and they don’t get the justice that they need, it makes them distrustful,” said the Rev. Andre H. Humphrey, commander of the Baltimore Trauma Response Team, a group of chaplains that helps police respond to violent crime scenes. “Not just of law enforcement, but of everyone.”

Skepticism and frustration

On the second Sunday afternoon of every month, a dozen or so mothers and fathers of homicide victims gather around folding tables spread across the crimson carpet of a meeting room at St. John’s Alpha and Omega Pentecostal Church in West Baltimore.

The church sits a short walk from where Freddie Gray was taken into police custody, and just a few blocks up North Avenue from the CVS that was torched during the riots and has since been rebuilt. The rest of this area looks, more or less, unchanged from 2015: a desolate maze of boarded-up rowhouses, crowded liquor stores and underattended churches.

December’s gathering started a bit behind schedule, though, because Alston had trouble getting to the church. There had been a shooting just a few blocks away, so she had to detour around the crime scene.

Each meeting begins with an open floor, in which families of victims can give updates on their cases. Then guests have the opportunity to talk about community programs or upcoming events.

In 2016, the Baltimore Police Department hired two victim-witness advocates, who work with the homicide unit and aim to help families affected by slayings. At the recent meeting, the gathered mothers heard from James Dixon, one of those advocates.

He quickly sensed skepticism and frustration.

Dixon assured the group that the department is doing everything in its power to bring their loved ones’ killers to justice. He said his very job was a sign of those efforts — since Baltimore is one of just a few major cities with full-time victims’ services staff.

But it’s a challenge, he said. Often, the leads that the mothers hear on the street don’t pan out. In other cases, witnesses who share details with the family of the slain clam up when police approach.

“It’s easy to beat up on the police and say that they’re not doing their job,” said Dixon, clad in a tan suit and yellow bow tie, as he paced the front of the room. “At the end of the day, if there’s not a witness . . . ”

And then the debate began.

The gathered women peppered Dixon with questions, prompting round after round of disagreement. The mothers said they feel like some victims are treated differently than others, but Dixon insisted that’s not true. Dixon suggested that the community needs to be more cooperative with police and with prosecutors. The mothers seemed unconvinced.

After about 2½ hours, the meeting adjourned, with Alston even more dissatisfied than she was when it began.

“People are losing their children every single day, and everybody profits off of our pain but nobody wants to hear our cry,” Alston said, downtrodden as she put on her coat and headed out the sanctuary’s side door. “I guess we have to just keep going to funerals.”

[The Romulan Republic]

So what exactly is your point?

[Elheru Aran]

So what exactly is your point?

It's Shep. He loves to post shit like this without commentary. I have no idea what his point is, unless it's that the police in Baltimore are doing a shitty job, which... okay? Does he want to propose a change? Or is it some kind of statement about how most of the violence in Baltimore seems to be concentrated around black communities?

[MKSheppard]

This is your semi-annual reminder that Maryland has done almost everything that supposedly stops "gun violence" according to activist groups that claim that doing these things will stop "gun violence"....yet it doesn't stop a fucking thing.

The "GUN SHOW LOOPHOLE" is closed for handguns and Universal Background Checks have been in effect for 20+ years for handguns as well, along with registration of all handguns sold/transferred with the State Police since 1996.

To be allowed to purchase/transfer a handgun, you've had to be fingerprinted and double triple checked by Maryland State Police, along with four hours of 'gun safety instruction' since 2013; that was five years ago.

We also have a one handgun a month law; an "anti saturday night special" law that restricts handguns sold in Maryland to only those that pass testing by the State Police, and until a few years back, every handgun sold in the state had to come with one (1) fired case, which was sent to State Police for ballistics testing....upon arrival at State Police HQ, the spent case in a baggie was literally tossed into 55 gallon drums.

It's been illegal to transfer handguns across state lines to non state residents since 1968 unless you're a FFL selling to another FFL.

Given that according to the FBI (https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/20 ... s/table-12) in 2016; 309 of 328 murders (94.2%) in Maryland were done with handguns; we live in a brave crime-free Maryland, where the murder rate in Baltimore is just fake news.

[madd0ct0r]

You also live in a Baltimore where a large proportion of the police are under investigation for abuse and setting innocent people up.

Hence no residents trust them or will go near them for fear of being set up.

Hence no witnesses, no evidence, no prosecution and no fear of getting caught by the killers.

And why so mamy killers? Drugs, gangs and corruption. Which is why the police are under investigation too.

Is this a useful case for national policy?

[Ralin]

Given that according to the FBI (https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/20 ... s/table-12) in 2016; 309 of 328 murders (94.2%) in Maryland were done with handguns; we live in a brave crime-free Maryland, where the murder rate in Baltimore is just fake news.

I'm confused. Are you saying Maryland should ban handguns?

[MKSheppard]

You also live in a Baltimore where a large proportion of the police are under investigation for abuse and setting innocent people up.

You talking about the Gun Task Force scandal?

Baltimore Sun Follows this

GTF by Vox

The task force, as its name suggests, was originally meant to get guns and violent criminals off the streets. In an investigation spanning over the past few years, however, federal officials uncovered a team fueled by corruption: The police officers in the unit set people up for baseless searches. They robbed people. They carried toy guns to plant as fake evidence in case they killed an unarmed person. They clocked overtime when they weren’t working at all.

Basically, the WIRE is a documentary of Baltimore. Go See it if you haven't seen it yet.

[Highlord Laan]

You also live in a Baltimore where a large proportion of the police are under investigation for abuse and setting innocent people up.

Hence no residents trust them or will go near them for fear of being set up.

Hence no witnesses, no evidence, no prosecution and no fear of getting caught by the killers.

And why so mamy killers? Drugs, gangs and corruption. Which is why the police are under investigation too.

Is this a useful case for national policy?

Turns out that when a population loses trust and any sort of respect for the supposed authorities, shit goes downhill. Gee, who'd of thought?

The only wonder is that it isn't happening nationwide. In Baltimore's case the PD and government are getting exactly what it deserves, too bad the people are paying for it, as usual. The only surprise in Baltimore's case is that widespread disorder and violence hasn't erupted, but give it time. I'm guess a couple more years of Baltimore's government being Baltimore's government and we'll see what happens when the majority populace get's sick and tired of it.

[Jub]

Laws without enforcement don't help shit, plus no amount of laws will help if the weapons themselves aren't removed from the hands of the masses. When you have a bad social safety net, a rampantly corrupt police force, and a shitload of guns you should expect things to go to shit. You need to get rid of existing guns first and then slowly reintroduce them with new gun control laws if you want the new laws to have any effect.

[MKSheppard]

Turns out that when a population loses trust and any sort of respect for the supposed authorities, shit goes downhill. Gee, who'd of thought?

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryl ... story.html
Using 2017's data:

About 86 percent of the victims and 85 percent of the 118 suspects identified by police had prior criminal records. And about 46 percent of victims and 44 percent of suspects had previously been arrested for gun crimes, the data show.

...

The average homicide victim in Baltimore in 2017 had 11 previous arrests on his record. About 73 percent had drug arrests, and nearly 50 percent had been arrested for a violent crime. About 30 percent were on parole or probation at the time they were killed, and more than 6 percent were on parole or probation for a gun crime.

Twenty percent of the victims were known members of a gang or drug crew, according to the data.

The average homicide suspect, meanwhile, had 9 previous arrests on his record. About 70 percent had drug arrests, and nearly half had been arrested for a violent crime. Nearly 36 percent were on parole or probation, and 6 percent were on parole or probation for a gun crime, the data show.

All you have to do is tighten up parole/probation in Baltimore to drop deaths by about a third, among other things; no new laws actually needed, just intestinal fortitude to take the heat.

Milequetoast Hogan is also wasting money on this from a few days ago:

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryl ... story.html

Calling the level of violence in Baltimore “completely unacceptable,” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan described Tuesday a crackdown that’s bringing in 200 law enforcement officers in a “strike force” to fight crime and expansion of a program in which defendants are prosecuted in federal court.

“People who live in Baltimore are rightfully scared,” Hogan said at his Baltimore office, flanked by law enforcement leaders from around the state. “They don’t feel safe in their own neighborhoods. Citizens across the state are outraged by the daily headlines of this rampant gang violence. … They’re crying out for somebody to do something to stop these killings.”

The city has suffered from more than 300 homicides annually for the last four years. Hogan referenced the high-profile shootings of two little girls — sisters, aged 5 and 7 — in separate incidents last year in West Baltimore.

The governor said state and federal officials would launch a “new violent crime joint operation center” in Baltimore, out of which 200 officers from 16 agencies will operate, targeting gangs.

He pledged to fund an expansion of Project Exile, a program through which federal prosecutors charge defendants instead of city prosecutors since successful prosecutions in federal court can lead to longer prison sentences. Hogan also said the state would provide money for signing bonuses to attract more recruits to the Baltimore Police Department.

Acting Baltimore Police Commissioner Gary Tuggle said Hogan is adding state police resources to an ongoing federal initiative called “strike force.”

“The strike force will operate indefinitely,” Tuggle said, adding that the Baltimore Police Department is contributing 14 officers to the operation. “There is a group of us that have been working on this for months. It’s a federal initiative that the governor is bolstering.”

[madd0ct0r]

The average homicide victim in Baltimore in 2017 had 11 previous arrests on his record. About 73 percent had drug arrests, and nearly 50 percent had been arrested for a violent crime. About 30 percent were on parole or probation at the time they were killed, and more than 6 percent were on parole or probation for a gun crime.

Twenty percent of the victims were known members of a gang or drug crew, according to the data.

The average homicide suspect, meanwhile, had 9 previous arrests on his record. About 70 percent had drug arrests, and nearly half had been arrested for a violent crime. Nearly 36 percent were on parole or probation, and 6 percent were on parole or probation for a gun crime, the data show.

the problem is shep, I have zero confidence that those arrests or even charges are more then 10% legit and less then 80% 'walking while black' followed by ''resisting arrest by breathing'

[madd0ct0r]

Its a knee jerk reaction and some twat is still pulling the trigger at every shooting.

I wonder what the arest history and being on parole rate is in the population not involved in shootings?
Sheps precriscption might detain thousands to save dozens.

[Ralin]

I'm still not clear what Shep's point is other than that he's somehow angry about local gun control laws.

[Elheru Aran]

I'm still not clear what Shep's point is other than that he's somehow angry about local gun control laws.

The overall situation a bit of everything, is my analysis after some off-site discussion.

--The gun control laws don't work as intended, because the cops are crooked, thus the citizens don't trust the cops, and thus the gun laws aren't well enforced

--There's a lot of criminal activity in the Baltimore area, because the cops don't do their job, because a.) they're crooked and b.) the citizens don't trust the cops

--The cops are crooked, thus there's a lot of criminal activity, thus the gun control laws don't work, because the cops don't enforce the laws well.

But the way Shep tends to deliver these posts about Baltimore/Maryland tends to come across as vaguely racist and dog-whistley (look at all these black people with criminal records!) when it's not 'lol gun control doesn't work' because he ignores the overall big picture to push his preferred message.

[MKSheppard]

Amusingly, some of my own offsite reading reveals that baltimore is even more fucked up than originally thought.

A). The Baltimore Police Chief has exactly 0% power; because of the consent decree the City entered into with DOJ. BPD Chief no longer has authority to set policy. All changes to policy/procedure are approved by the Federal Monitor and Federal Judge assigned to oversee the consent decree. Basically, you get blamed for EVERYTHING, but have 0% capability to actually change things. So nobody who is competent wants the job.

B.) 1/3 of the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office has quit or retired since 2015. Basically people with less than <3 years of experience are trying to prosecute serious felonies in circuit court. Tons of slam dunk cases are lost because the prosecutor can't understand rules of evidence and how to properly execute them resulting in cases being thrown out for lack of evidence (lulz). This has fatally damaged the City's ability to mount prosecutions, resulting in Baltimore PD going from arresting 100K a year to 18K a year; and even with this reduced arrest rate, about half the cases end up being dismissed, despite the prosecution having such things like: body camera footage, DNA, taped post-mirandized confessions, etc.

The offsite source felt that the only credible option for Hogan would be to have the State of Maryland take over the Baltimore Police Department / State's Attorney's Office. This is not really politically feasible for Hogan because the State of Maryland already pays for/runs a significant percentage of Baltimore services; and Baltimore's political power within the state is fading versus the DC suburbs.

[MKSheppard]

--The gun control laws don't work as intended, because the cops are crooked, thus the citizens don't trust the cops, and thus the gun laws aren't well enforced

I was unaware that the Maryland State Police were handing out Handgun Qualification License approvals to convicted felons for a few thousand dollars under the table.

Serious question.

What is the point of gun control laws?

Is it to actually try and stop crime?

[Ace Pace]

--The gun control laws don't work as intended, because the cops are crooked, thus the citizens don't trust the cops, and thus the gun laws aren't well enforced

I was unaware that the Maryland State Police were handing out Handgun Qualification License approvals to convicted felons for a few thousand dollars under the table.

Serious question.

What is the point of gun control laws?

Is it to actually try and stop crime?

Do you require positive examples of gun control laws working in other states and nations?

[madd0ct0r]

--The gun control laws don't work as intended, because the cops are crooked, thus the citizens don't trust the cops, and thus the gun laws aren't well enforced

I was unaware that the Maryland State Police were handing out Handgun Qualification License approvals to convicted felons for a few thousand dollars under the table.

Serious question.

What is the point of gun control laws?

Is it to actually try and stop crime?

It is about reducing the options and ability of an average member of society to deal deadly force. This reduces the perceived risk by society, allowing more people to descalate, allows more people to not revert to 'cult of honour and disporportionate retribtion, shoot them first before they get you'

The UK is probably a more violent place then the USA. You can find a fight on most highstreets most weekends. But these rarely escalate to actual harm.

[Ziggy Stardust]

This is your semi-annual reminder that Maryland has done almost everything that supposedly stops "gun violence" according to activist groups that claim that doing these things will stop "gun violence"....yet it doesn't stop a fucking thing.

Are you for some reason under the impression that Maryland is a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Or does the fact that the entire point of gun control is to limit the number of guns available, but due to a cultural inability to implement this on a national level (because of morons who routinely ignore the obvious, like yourself) we completely undermine any and all local attempts to limit guns because we still have an utterly ridiculous surplus of them nation-wide? I mean, I don't understand what is so complicated to understand about this. Even if you disagree with the premise (which is fine, there is room for reasonable people to disagree), your stubborn refusal to ever actually engage with the facts or arguments in an honest or straightforward manner is precisely why you have become a joke that nobody here takes seriously when you post. If all you do is misrepresent and cherry-pick, then yeah, everyone is going to immediately dismiss you like they have in this thread (even people that otherwise are not the strictest gun control advocates, of which we have many reasonable members).

[Lonestar]

My return to that is "the reason why gun violence has shot up in PR over the past few years must be because they are always popping over to the pawn shop in Indiana".

Most firearms used in violent crimes, even in strict gun control regime states, usually originate in the state itself. NY, MD, IL, and Calil like to blame other states for it.

[Jub]

Most firearms used in violent crimes, even in strict gun control regime states, usually originate in the state itself. NY, MD, IL, and Calil like to blame other states for it.

Prove it. Then, prove that they were legally sold to the person using them to commit a crime. Then prove that the same crime could still have happened in a place with a history of far stricter firearms laws.

-----

My own thought on the matter:

Would it be wrong to have a full stop handgun and SBR ban in the same vein that automatic weapons were banned? With the exception of making them non-transferable and non-salable in all states. This combined with making open and concealed carry of restricted weapons illegal full stop. You can carry them unloaded to and from the range in a secured lock box separated from their ammo.

This doesn't change home defense at all because any expert will tell you that a fully stocked shotgun is a more effective home defense weapon than a pistol. Nor does it prevent the formation of a well-ordered militia as pistols are not effective battlefield weapons. It shouldn't violate any rights nor deprive the rightful owners of the weapons they currently own while making, practically illegal, the classes of weapons most often used in violent crime.

[MKSheppard]

Are you for some reason under the impression that Maryland is a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? .....I mean, I don't understand what is so complicated to understand about this. Even if you disagree with the premise (which is fine, there is room for reasonable people to disagree), your stubborn refusal to ever actually engage with the facts or arguments in an honest or straightforward manner is precisely why you have become a joke that nobody here takes seriously when you post.

Do you even know what the process is for purchasing firearms in the United States is?

You MUST complete handgun purchases IN your state of residence; no ifs buts or nots. This has been the law since 1968.

You can buy the handgun out of state, but it has to be shipped via ground shipper to a Federally Licensed Firearms Dealer in your home state, where you must follow all necessary regulations of your home state.

Here's an example.

Virginia bans the .50 Caliber Super Dooper Murder Kill Handcannon. Lonestar really fucking wants it, and Maryland hasn't banned it yet.

Lonestar drives to a Maryland gun dealer and when they see his Virginia Driver's license, refuse the sale, because they know that the .50 Caliber Super Dooper Murder Kill Handcannon is illegal in VA.

Lonestar says fuck it; and drives to Georgia, shows his VA driver's license...and gets told that the .50 Caliber Super Dooper Murder Kill Handcannon has to be shipped to a dealer in VA; and so ships it off, since Georgia doesn't know exactly what's legal and not in VA.

The .50 Caliber Super Dooper Murder Kill Handcannon arrives in VA and the Virginia gun dealer tells Lonestar to fuck off and doesn't sell it to him.

Lonestar's only option now is to buy it illegally on the black market.

[MKSheppard]

This combined with making open and concealed carry of restricted weapons illegal full stop. You can carry them unloaded to and from the range in a secured lock box separated from their ammo.

Jub Jub, we've done that in Maryland.

Open carry of pistols is banned, concealed carry is "may issue", i.e. how much $$$ you pay MSP in bribes, meaning it's very hard to get if you are not Donald Trump.

Vehicle transport?

https://lawcenter.giffords.org/guns-in- ... -maryland/

Maryland prohibits the knowing transportation of a handgun, whether openly or concealed, on or about the person or in a vehicle traveling on a state highway, waterway, airway, or road or parking lot generally used by the public.1 Exceptions to these provisions include transporting a handgun to or from:

A place of purchase or repair;
A residence and business; or
An organized military activity, formal or informal target practice, sport shooting event, or hunting.2

Under these exceptions, the handgun must be unloaded and carried in an enclosed case or holster

Under a strict reading of the law, if you're going to the gun range with your .50 killomatic and stop to get lunch at a burger king, you're breaking the law; since you are not at: Gun store, Residence, or shooting sport activity.

[Jub]

Jub Jub, we've done that in Maryland.

Open carry of pistols is banned, concealed carry is "may issue", i.e. how much $$$ you pay MSP in bribes, meaning it's very hard to get if you are not Donald Trump.

Vehicle transport?

https://lawcenter.giffords.org/guns-in- ... -maryland/

Maryland prohibits the knowing transportation of a handgun, whether openly or concealed, on or about the person or in a vehicle traveling on a state highway, waterway, airway, or road or parking lot generally used by the public.1 Exceptions to these provisions include transporting a handgun to or from:

A place of purchase or repair;
A residence and business; or
An organized military activity, formal or informal target practice, sport shooting event, or hunting.2

Under these exceptions, the handgun must be unloaded and carried in an enclosed case or holster

Under a strict reading of the law, if you're going to the gun range with your .50 killomatic and stop to get lunch at a burger king, you're breaking the law; since you are not at: Gun store, Residence, or shooting sport activity.

These laws need to be nationwide to be effective. These laws cannot work in isolation unless you're willing to run a secure border, eliminate all guns sold under previous laws, and destroy any gun found that doesn't obey the current laws. All without undue levels of corruption in the enforcement arm and the will to see the law enforced in perpetuity.

[MKSheppard]

Most firearms used in violent crimes, even in strict gun control regime states, usually originate in the state itself. NY, MD, IL, and Calil like to blame other states for it.

Prove it.

https://www.atf.gov/file/119321/download

Total Number of Firearms Recovered and Traced in Maryland by Calendar Year 2016
8,665

Top 15 Source States for Firearms with a Maryland Recovery January 1, 2016 – December 31, 2016
MD: 2,855
VA: 780
PA: 362
WV: 221
NC: 219
SC: 125
GA: 167
FL: 142
TX: 68
CA: 58
[omitted]