Handgun Control

This General Assembly session's first showdown on handgun-control begins tomorrow in a House committee, which is hearing arguments on a slew of gun bills even as advocacy groups and the governor's office continue negotiations on finding common ground.Handgun-control organizations believe that two Democratic delegates hold the key in the House Judiciary Committee -- Del. Mary Louise Preis of Harford County and Del. Gerry Brewster of Baltimore County. In both cases, the delegates come from districts that strongly endorsed handgun control in the 1988 referendum.

With the halfway point of this year's General Assembly session behind us, there's not much encouraging news. Lawmakers seem stuck on issues of sports: Is the cost too high for Maryland to open its arms and welcome Jack Kent Cooke's Redskins to Laurel? Can electioneering legislators kill plans for a Baltimore football stadium and divvy up the cash for pet projects?These are the questions that dominate State House discussion. Yet lawmakers are supposed to be dealing with such knotty social issues as handgun control, health-care reforms, scholarship reforms, procurement reforms, welfare reforms and a needle-exchange program for the city.

Is Maryland's Senate president playing a slick game of hide-and-seek with handgun control supporters? Is he forming a subtle alliance with an anti-gun control senator so that all handgun measures will die in committee this session?That's the way it looks, judging from the actions of President Thomas V. Mike Miller of Prince George's County. After mouthing favorable words about bringing a gun-control measure to a vote on the Senate floor, Mr. Miller has reversed course: He's lining up with Sen. Walter Baker, the powerful committee chairman who has vowed to kill every gun-restriction bill that comes before him.Mr.

It is no secret in Annapolis that the biggest impediments to handgun control are Cecil County Sen. Walter Baker and his Judicial Proceedings Committee. Already this session, Mr. Baker has sworn to kill any and all handgun legislation that comes before his committee. "Banning guns has nothing to do with crime," he said. Mr. Baker's Senate colleagues, though, have other ideas.Their concern is that opposing handgun controls in an election year could be political dynamite, especially for incumbents running in urban or close-in suburban communities where crime is a dominant campaign issue.

Politicians who vote against gun control this election year face more chance for political retaliation than those who support it, reversing long-held convention, the leader of Maryland's gun-control forces declared yesterday.Carrying the campaign for supporting handgun control to Baltimore County, Vincent DeMarco, director of Marylanders Against Handgun Abuse (MAHA), said a majority of the public and "very close to a majority" in the state Senate and House of Delegates favor measures to stem the proliferation of handguns and their concomitant violence.

A group of 16 local civic and political leaders gathered in the county office building yesterday, pledging support for a campaign to make Maryland the leader in handgun control.Although other organizations have gotten behind the effort sponsored by Marylanders Against Handgun Abuse, Howard County is the first geographical region in which a group has been formed to support the gun control effort, said Vincent DeMarco, executive director of the handgun lobby. The group is receiving unofficial support from the County Council.

Jim and Sarah Brady and their colleagues at Handgun Control Inc. held a celebratory post-signing party after President Clinton put his signature on what is now the "Brady Law." Some critics say it doesn't go far enough and won't do much good. Its supporters admit it is a very modest effort. Even Sarah Brady says more far-reaching gun control laws are needed to prevent violence. But two thoughts needed to be added to that:(1) A nationwide Brady Law requiring a waiting period and police background check before buying a handgun will reduce violence.

WASHINGTON -- In signing the Brady bill requiring a five-day waiting period on the sale of handguns, President Clinton called it "step one in taking our streets back." It may be no more than that, but considering the carnage that handguns cause in the country -- one shooting every 20 minutes, Clinton said -- a first step has been sorely needed.It has been a national disgrace that it has taken so long to achieve enactment -- more than 12 years after Jim Brady, its namesake, was felled in the hail of bullets intended to kill, and nearly did kill, President Ronald Reagan.

Drive-by shootings and gang violence sweeping cities across the nation are inciting new support for gun control laws, powering a movement that backers say could make owning firearms as unpopular as drunken driving or smoking in crowded restaurants.Over the last year officials in nearly a dozen states have approved or proposed new restrictions on gun ownership -- signaling that gun control may be an issue whose time is at hand.So deep is the concern over teen-age shootings and spreading urban mayhem that even Western states such as Utah and Colorado, where gun ownership by minors is often considered a rite of passage, have taken bold action to stop young people from shooting one another.

WASHINGTON -- Once again, crunch time is approaching on the Brady bill, the legislation that would impose a five-day waiting period on the sale of handguns while a check is made to determine that the prospective buyer has no criminal record. And its strongest advocates are worried that once again, despite overwhelming public support, it may fall between the cracks for lack of a major push by President Clinton, who says he favors it.The bill, named for James Brady, former President Ronald Reagan's press secretary severely wounded in the 1981 attempt on Reagan's life, has been before Congress for six years.