Gun Violence

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon was back in Annapolis yesterday, trying to persuade legislators to tighten laws on illegal gun possession. Too often, she says, people convicted of possessing illegal guns spend little time in jail. A review of 2008 District Court cases by the mayor's staff found that judges gave suspended sentences to 86 percent of gun offenders who were convicted. That's not a punishment, it's a pass. What's more troubling is that many of these same offenders go on to commit more serious - and violent - crimes with a gun in hand.

Carole Price, the mother of a 13-year-old shot by a younger neighbor with a handgun, heads a local committee for the Million Mom March to the U. S. Capitol on Mother's Day to express concern about gun violence and to urge Congress to pass legislation to protect children from guns. Her son John Joseph Price was to enter ninth grade at Perry Hall High School when he died Aug. 20, 1998, after the shooting in the first block of Pine Cone Court near White Marsh in Baltimore County. Price, 36, now lives in Carroll County, and is march chairwoman for Carroll and Baltimore counties.

HE WAS right the first time. Howard County Executive James N. Robey's decision to sell police officers their old handguns reverses an enlightened -- and opposite -- earlier decision. He should return to the position he argued so well before: "We can not risk the chance of having one of our own service weapons turn up in a scenario where it can be used against us, other law enforcement professionals or innocent victims," he said. He now plans to take precisely that risk. Howard County police officers are getting new, improved firepower soon, thus making their old side arms available for trade-in, sale or destruction.

After The Independent, a newspaper in the United Kingdom, sent a crime reporter to Baltimore this month to see if the city reflects the images on "The Wire," The Sun sent police reporter Justin Fenton to London. The swap offered an opportunity to compare attitudes, crime and policing in London and Baltimore. For more observations, visit baltimoresun.com/twocities. It has been a week since the 22-year-old was shot three times in the head while riding a bike in South London.

Maryland Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen will join with gun control campaigners and religious leaders in a rally against gun violence on the National Mall Saturday. The advocates plan to march in silence at 11 a.m. from the Capitol to the Washington Monument where Van Hollen and others will speak. "I have long been a supporter of common sense measures to prevent gun violence," Van Hollen said in a statement. "Banning assault-style weapons, restricting high-capacity magazines, and implementing a system for universal background checks are just a few of the ways we can help make our communities safer.

REPUBLICAN REP. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. complained for years that Democrats had failed to crack down on Baltimore's armed drug lords. But now, with his party's man in the U.S. Attorney's Office, Mr. Ehrlich asks for patience. The new man's getting his sea legs, the congressman says. Give him a chance, etc. We'd like to, but as Mr. Ehrlich has pointed out, Baltimore's dying. We're out of patience with people who want patience. We backed Mr. Ehrlich's call for a tough new anti-gun policy, and we regret any backtracking.

As a mother of nine, Jean Yahudah worries about whether her children are safe in her Park Heights neighborhood. She has had windows shot out of her Woodland Avenue home, bullets fired through her van, and every one of her children, ages 8 to 31, knows a friend or acquaintance who was shot or murdered during the past few years. "There's just too much violence," she said. "I want to live in a normal, safe and healthy neighborhood." Yahudah offered her home yesterday as a gathering point for volunteers, who picked up fliers and spread the word that gun violence will no longer be tolerated in Park Heights in Northwest Baltimore.

NEW crime reports from federal and Maryland authorities report encouraging reductions in some crimes, but not in Baltimore's continuing frenzy of gunplay. The random nature of the shooting means everyone -- not just criminals and drug users -- is at risk.As both candidates for mayor have said, crime drives residents and businesses from the city. David F. Tufaro, the Republican, and Councilman Martin O'Malley, the Democrat, disagree on how to combat the problem.But they don't dispute the problem's critical importance and persistence.

PHILADELPHIA -- In a hospital emergency room, a young man winces as doctors try to determine how badly he has been injured. His name is Karim Williams, he is 27, and he is this city's latest shooting victim. He says he was hit about 12:30 a.m. by a shot fired while he was walking from his girlfriend's car into a bar. Williams was fortunate. The bullet went through his leg without hitting bone or major blood vessels, and after a shot of morphine and a few hours' observation, he will be discharged from the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania back into the West Philadelphia night.

IN RICHMOND, Va., where zero tolerance and Project Exile make justice unforgiving, Joseph Quarles drew five years in prison last week for public urination. More or less. Quarles stepped out of a car last August to relieve himself on a city street. When police arrested him they found a .22 caliber Jennings pistol and heroin residue on a dollar bill. As any lawyer or professional drug dealer in Virginia's capital can tell you, the gun on this 19-year-old father of two (with another on the way)