Baltimore seeks tougher gun laws Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy and Mayor Sheila Dixon want new legislation to keep people convicted of gun crimes in prison longer and require anyone who has lost a weapon to report the disappearance to police within three days.
Both said they will push for such laws in the General Assembly session that begins today, in an effort to continue the slowing rate of city homicides evident in the latter half of last year, which followed a summer surge. Baltimore ended 2007 with 282 slayings, up from 276 the year before.
Some of the city's legislative proposals are new, such as the penalty for not reporting a lost or stolen gun. Others, such as keeping rifles and other long-barreled guns out of the hands of felons and domestic abusers, have been debated for years and often died in House and Senate committees.
"If these bills pass, people will soon realize that Baltimore and the state of Maryland are the worst places in the world for gun crimes," Dixon said in an interview yesterday. "That's what I want because, in other cities, crime is going down while we have not changed, and we've got to."
Last year, Jessamy and Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler worked on anti-gang legislation that passed the General Assembly but in a form different from what they envisioned. Gansler's office has called the final result "watered-down," while Jessamy used harsher words, describing the Maryland Gang Prosecution Act of 2007 as "useless."
Gansler wants to make it easier for prosecutors to define someone as a gang member, strengthen penalties and allow prosecutors to seize gang members' assets.
Together, Jessamy and Gansler also are proposing a statewide task force to establish early intervention and prevention for potential gang members. To do effective prevention, "we need to be together," Jessamy said. "We don't need to all be going in different directions."
Jessamy's office has in previous years sparred with the mayor's office over the best way to fight crime in the city.
She and Gov. Martin O'Malley, when he was mayor, differed on police tactics and strategies, most notably on O'Malley's statistics-driven policy that netted tens of thousands of arrests.
"It's good to have people singing from the same page in the same hymnbook again," Jessamy said of the new administration in City Hall. "It's refreshing."
