Handgun Ban

In the fall of 1988, Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. ventured into gun country in St. Mary's County with an unpopular message.Delivering a speech he would make countless times that fall, Curran tried to sell a mostly hostile audience on the state's ban on Saturday night special weapons, passed that year by the General Assembly but still needing ratification by the voters."

Frustrated by what he calls "an epidemic of violent yet preventable death," Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. will break ranks with other state officials today and call for an outright ban on private ownership of handguns.Curran acknowledges that his proposal is at best a long-term goal, but says he hopes that his 58-page report, "A Farewell to Arms," will spur public discussion that eventually will lead to such a ban.In the meantime, he says, he will push for more immediate changes in state and federal gun laws.

IN THIS COUNTRY, where a respectable Potomac businesswoman keeps an assault rifle in the bedroom, the British House of Commons can only be considered un-American. It outlawed handguns outright, with hardly the blink of an eye.A country with no written constitution obviously has no Second Amendment that can be quoted in part so as to misconstrue its meaning. Bummer.Just because a madman walked into an elementary school in a Scottish village with four legally owned handguns and murdered 16 children and a teacher, a year ago, the newly elected British House of Commons acted as if it truly believed there was some connection.

BETTER NOT go to Britain to preach the gospel of gun ownership, armed self-protection and the right to bear arms. The danger of being run over by anti-gun demonstrators is too great.The government of Prime Minister John Major intends to outlaw private ownership of handguns except .22 caliber target pistols locked up in gun clubs. Despite token objections from a few pro-gun Conservatives, the opposition comes from the Labor Party and victims' kin demanding that .22 target pistols be banned, too, Olympic competition be damned.

LONDON -- One of the world's more stringent gun control laws is about to get a whole lot tougher.Yesterday, the British government announced plans to introduce a near-total handgun ban in response to the March 13 massacre in which a man carrying licensed hand guns killed 16 children and their teacher in Dunblane, Scotland.The ruling Conservatives proposed banning all handguns over .22 caliber. And even owners of .22 caliber pistols would be required to store and use their weapons at heavily secured gun clubs.

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- A growing effort by Los Angeles-area cities to take the lead on gun control legislation will move ahead next week, when the West Hollywood City Council considers a law that would ban the sale of Saturday night specials.The restrictions on the cheap, small handguns would be the first of their kind in California and -- if they can survive expected legal challenges -- they could pave the way for similar proposals in other cities, including Los Angeles.Despairing at the state Legislature's reluctance to pass gun-control laws, several Los Angeles County cities in the past year have been moving incrementally in an effort to control gun violence.