Gun Safety

The inexcusable shooting of a police trainee by fellow officers suggests that the Baltimore City Police Department should partner with the National Rifle Association or some similar organization for gun safety instructions ("Campus officer shot in training," Feb. 13). Anyone one who has ever taken a gun safety course knows there are certain basic rules for handling firearms. The shooting of the police trainee clearly indicates that at least three of these rules were broken: First, always check to see whether a gun is loaded; second, treat all guns as if they were loaded; and third, never point a gun at anything that you don't intend to kill.

Let me begin this column with an apology. Once a week, I pick an important issue and offer my reasoned analysis, based on the facts, of what it all means and how we should react. But there are times when the intellect fails and the heart and gut take over. And this is one of them. In the spring of 1968, I walked into the McCarthy for President office in San Francisco and signed up as a volunteer. That was my first taste of politics, and I've been involved in politics ever since, both as practitioner and observer.

Of 463 SUNDIAL callers who responded to a question about proposed legislation that would require guns at home to be kept under lock, 183 (39.5 percent) said the bill would accomplish its goal of preventing shooting accidents; 108 (23.3 percent) said stronger measures should be taken; and 172 (37.1 percent) said no bill is needed."It's Your Call" represents a sampling of opinions from certain segments of the community, but it is not balanced demographically, as a scientific public opinion poll would be.

With a productive General Assembly session behind him, Gov. Martin O'Malley said Wednesday that he will use the second half of the year to consider whether to run for the White House. "I need to be spending a lot more energy and time giving serious consideration and preparation to what - if anything - I might have to offer should I decide to run for president in 2016," O'Malley said during a wide-ranging interview with editors of The Baltimore Sun. O'Malley has typically demurred from answering questions about his potential candidacy, though it has been the subject of news articles and rampant political speculation both in and outside of Maryland.

The shotgun that Robert Wayne Gladden Jr. allegedly used in last week's shooting at Perry Hall High School wasn't registered with the state. Under Maryland law, that wasn't required. Police also say the 15-year-old Gladden should never have been able to get his hands on the weapon. He found it unsecured in his father's home, according to court documents. The shooting has shed light on the gap between the regulation of handguns - often used in crimes - and "long guns" such as the double-barrel Western Field shotgun that police seized, a firearm more common on a hunting range or farm.

I don't think I've ever been so proud of an American president as I was watching President Obama speak so movingly about the victims of recent gun violence and the executive actions he was going to take to curb the country's epidemic of gun violence. What tremendous courage — guts, really — to stand up against the NRA and call for sensible, responsible gun control measures to keep kids and others in our society safer and more secure. Hopefully, Governor O'Malley and the Maryland legislature will heed the president's call.

Stepping in where state legislators have feared to tread two-years running, a Montgomery County councilman is proposing a local bill aimed at keeping firearms away from children. The bill is a virtual clone of a little-publicized law Baltimore's City Council passed in May. Iowa, Connecticut and Virginia also have enacted comparable measures -- all deriving from a 1989 Florida law.It's encouraging to see local lawmakers in the state's two largest political jurisdictions tackling gun-control measures.

TO SAY THE Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution giving citizens the right to bear arms is responsible for school violence is like blaming Thomas Edison for the lights going out in California. Sadly, there are daily commentaries that point fingers at guns and law-abiding, responsible gun owners as the cause of what has occurred recently in our nation's classrooms and schoolyards. Erroneous news coverage magnifies a number of widely spread, misdirected conclusions drawn from these incidents.

AMID all the excitement that Carroll's gun safety curriculum could serve as a statewide education model, let's not forget an important fact. There's no track record for the K- 9 lessons and not much useful feedback. The series of lesson plans was developed over six months last year by a panel of teachers, parents, police and other citizens on a sort of deadline. Their work got done in August, just a couple of weeks before this school year started. How effective educators have been in weaving it into the health and safety education programs has yet to be established.

Carroll County's experiment with teaching gun safety to public school students as part of the health program this year could become a model for others in Maryland. There has been little done statewide to teach children what to do if they find a gun or encounter one somewhere, said Ron Peiffer, Maryland's assistant superintendent for school and community outreach. In Carroll, a committee of school staff, working with crime victims and law-enforcement representatives, has devised a program for students from kindergarten to high school that deals with guns as a personal safety issue.

A line of cars snaked around the government office parking lot, down Bendix Road and for up to half a mile along Route 108 in the late morning and the afternoon, as people waited for hours to trade in guns to Howard County police for crisp $100 bills. At the end of the day police had recovered 631 guns and at 2:30 had to start turning cars away, officials said. The last time they tried a similar effort in 1995, the total number of guns collected was three. "We didn't know what to expect," said Chief William McMahon, but officials were pleased with the turnout.

The Maryland Senate today passed the most significant gun control measure in Maryland in at least a generation, one that not only responds to the threat of a Newtown-style mass shooting but also to the daily violence that plagues Baltimore and other Maryland communities. The House of Delegates is to hold its first hearing on Gov. Martin O'Malley's legislation tomorrow, and it should quickly follow the Senate's lead. The key components of the legislation are a ban on the sale of assault weapons and ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds; new restrictions to prevent those suffering from a mental illness that makes them a threat to themselves or others from obtaining handguns; and a new licensing system for handgun purchasers.

University of Maryland, College Park president Wallace Loh has endorsed state legislative efforts to limit gun ownership, following an apparent murder-suicide this month involving students at the school. Loh, in a column to be published in the campus newspaper, The Diamondback, on Thursday, wrote that making the campus and surrounding areas safer had long been a priority for him. Yet it was the recent shooting - police say a graduate student living off-campus killed his roommate and wounded another roommate before killing himself - that spurred Loh's public endorsement of Gov. Martin O'Malley's gun control legislative package.

The inexcusable shooting of a police trainee by fellow officers suggests that the Baltimore City Police Department should partner with the National Rifle Association or some similar organization for gun safety instructions ("Campus officer shot in training," Feb. 13). Anyone one who has ever taken a gun safety course knows there are certain basic rules for handling firearms. The shooting of the police trainee clearly indicates that at least three of these rules were broken: First, always check to see whether a gun is loaded; second, treat all guns as if they were loaded; and third, never point a gun at anything that you don't intend to kill.

Perhaps some facts would help the sycophantic Mr. Britt understand how truly vacuous and meaningless our president's recent theatrical performance on gun control, complete with a wallpaper of children behind him, was ("State lawmakers should follow President Obama's lead on gun safety," Letters, Jan. 24). I'm sure Mr. Britt was equally impressed by our governor's performance in which he claimed that the Newtown tragedy demonstrated the need for Obamacare is needed! The political grandstanding of our politicians is shameful!

People across the political spectrum acknowledge that no one knows exactly what policies or programs would substantially reduce individual gun deaths and mass killings. Without well-conducted research, we will never find out. As a physician, I applaud President Barack Obama for his executive action restoring permission for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct research on ways to reduce gun violence. This action removes legal barriers to systematic studies of the multiple contributors to gun-related deaths and injuries and the effects of violence in media including video games.

THIS YEAR'S GUN legislation might be history, but the subject is still much on the minds of Northwest Carroll youths. As part of a contest organized by the town of New Windsor, more than 80 New Windsor Middle School pupils drew posters or developed slogans advocating gun safety. The four winners met with the governor for a presentation yesterday at the State House. Seventh-grader Cecelia Condon took first place with her slogan, "Lock the Gun's Trigger So Kids Can Grow Bigger." Sixth-grader Kristen Remmers won first place for art with her poster, a drawing of a gun with a padlock on it and the words, "Get Your Guns Locked Up Before They Get You Locked Up."

  What's next, an attack on a Sunday School class?  Quick, put armed guards in all the churches! What about malls?  Do we want armed guards at every entrance?  Is this how we want to live?   Americans are fond of saying our country is exceptional.  It's true: Twenty times more people are shot to death here than in any other country.  Ninety percent of children killed by gunfire are Americans.  Often they are doing something as innocent as going to school or watching the fireworks on New Years Eve.  About 30 people die from gunshots every day.  Is this how we want to be exceptional?

Maryland has some of the toughest gun laws in the country — and Baltimore's are even stricter — yet the city continues to struggle with rampant gun violence as thousands of criminals gain access to firearms. And for supporters and opponents of tighter gun laws alike, that dichotomy illustrates both the promise and the challenge of the state and national debates. Gun control advocates say persistent urban violence in a city with firm authority over legal gun transactions shows that the government needs to crack down harder on the illegal transmission of weapons.