NEWS
By Ian Duncan, The Baltimore Sun | January 19, 2013
Outspoken Del. Patrick L. McDonough outlined his plans for tough penalties for gun crimes as firearms owners gathered at a Bel Air shooting range as part of a national series of events to push back against proposed gun control measures. "What I'm mad as hell about is they want to take our Second Amendment rights away, but they don't care about people who are really committing the crimes," McDonough said of people proposing new gun laws. He was speaking at the Horst & McCann indoor gun range in Bel Air as part of a series of events dubbed "Gun Appreciation Day," by a Republican political consultant, and staged as a protest against new gun laws that President Barack Obama and governors including Martin O'Malley have proposed in the wake of the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school.
NEWS
January 3, 2013
I feel compelled to respond to Christian Wilson's letter ("Quick-fix legislation won't solve our gun violence problem," Dec. 31). The author really made a compelling case for gun laws, the opposite of what he intended. He is correct that laws cannot keep everyone from doing violence. That is why dangerous weapons like assault rifles should not be readily available. Does anyone think that Adam Lanza would attack an elementary school with a hammer? If he did, there would probably be no one dead there.
NEWS
By Robert Maranto | December 18, 2012
I grew up in Baltimore, in a world where guns were, unambiguously, for deterring or killing people . Family lore says that back in the 1920s, my grandfather used a gun to scare off the Mafia - the Black Hand, as Sicilians of the time called it. While in other cities thugs collected protection money, Baltimore Mayor William Broening deputized Italian businessmen like my grandfather, giving them badges and guns to deter the bad guys. It turned out that, as my dad put it, mafiosi are businessmen.
NEWS
March 9, 2012
Kudos to Judge Benson E. Legg for overturning Maryland's draconian and unconstitutional gun-carry laws. Statistics are very clear - granting carry permits to law-abiding, well-trained citizens does not increase gun violence. In fact, when the good are armed, the bad are hesitant. When I lived in Pennsylvania, I had a weapons permit, carried the gun often and never once fired it anywhere except the shooting range. But I was prepared to protect myself and my family, if necessary. Our neighbors in Pennsylvania and Virginia, both demographically very similar to suburban Maryland, rank lower in gun deaths per 100,000 than our lovely state.
NEWS
By Peter Hermann, The Baltimore Sun | March 5, 2011
The condos at the Ritz-Carlton Residences offer "luxurious waterfront living" — with breathtaking views of Baltimore's Inner Harbor and amenities that include marble baths, landscaped terraces and butler's pantries with access for the help. But that's not enough for one resident. An architect has been talking to city officials about permits that might be needed to build a gun range in one of the penthouse-level condos on Key Highway, at the foot of Federal Hill. Inquiries about the gun range were meant to be hush-hush, but word about the unusual request got out quickly.
NEWS
By J. Michael Kennedy and J. Michael Kennedy,LOS ANGELES TIMES | July 23, 2004
LOS ANGELES - The city of Chico, Calif., has set aside $1.6 million to clean up a shooting range, and Santa Cruz, Calif., may have to spend $500,000 to get the lead out. The culprit: billions of bullets and shotgun pellets that shooters discharge on these and other ranges nationwide. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that people blast tens of millions of pounds of lead each year at the country's 9,000 outdoor ranges. Roughly 4 percent of all lead produced in the United States - about 80,000 tons a year - becomes bullets and shot.