Weapons

As a 25-year retired veteran of the U.S. Army Reserves, a year of which I served on active duty in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, I find Maryland lawmakers' unwillingness to support veterans' right to carry concealed handguns disheartening. Faced with serious security issues at home, veterans are either denied or don't even apply for concealed carry handgun permits. Although the state contends that it does not deny people permits, the reality contradicts that. Many veterans like myself were trained on weapons and trained others on systems ranging from assault rifles and machine guns to rockets and high explosives.

Having determined that the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad has used chemical weapons against his opponents in the country's bloody two-year civil war, the Obama administration is now reportedly preparing to send lethal military aid to rebel forces battling the regime. Mr. Obama said earlier this year that any use of chemical weapons by the Syrian military would cross a "red line" that invited a U.S. response. Now that American intelligence has confirmed Syria has crossed that line, the U.S. response must be measured but leave no doubt that the use of such weapons will not be tolerated.

A recent report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments concluded, "Historically the U.S. military has often been slow to identify, adequately prioritize, and respond effectively to the emerging challenges likely to impose the greatest stresses on our forces in future contingencies…" The 30-year shipbuilding plan just submitted by the U.S. Navy unfortunately confirms this judgment, and recent decisions by the Senate Armed Services Committee...

In his recent speech, President Barack Obama set forth what he described as narrow, reasonable guidelines for using drones to carry out targeted killings overseas. The U.S., he said, will only use drone strikes "against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people. " Moreover, the U.S. will only act when other governments are unwilling or unable to stop terrorists in their territories and we do not have the ability to capture them. These guidelines still give the U.S. a self-granted license to use remote-controlled planes to kill people at its discretion around the world, and, worse, they further institutionalize this dangerous new type of warfare.

Here's an assumption any post-9/11American might make: Someone in a dark room full of computers and video monitors deep inside one of our snoopy federal law enforcement agencies is tracking the purchases of large caches of weapons and ammunition by anyone at any time anywhere in the country, including Anne Arundel County. Isn't that the sort of thing we've been paying for with our federal taxes over the last decade? People who buy explosives for bombs or enough weapons to outfit a small army - they're monitored by someone deep inside the Department of Homeland Security and our vast array of federal agencies, right?

THE BBC ended up as a useful foil for British Prime Minister Tony Blair. A highly charged investigation into the suicide of David Kelly, a government arms expert, came down hard on the broadcaster. It determined that a reporter, Andrew Gilligan, had been out of bounds when he inaccurately quoted Mr. Kelly - though not by name - as saying the prime minister's office had "sexed up" a report on Iraq's weapons. Mr. Blair last week declared himself exonerated, and heads rolled at the BBC. Attention was diverted from one very salient fact: that the government report, which claimed Iraq could mobilize chemical arms within 45 minutes, was dead wrong, no matter what Mr. Kelly may have said.

Does it occur to anyone in the left-wing Obama administration that arming Syrian rebels with modern weapons will result in arming a group of fighters who live just across the border from Israel ("The best bad option," May 2)? Does it dawn on anyone on the left who supports this president and this leftist administration what the future impact of high-grade weaponry will be on the Jewish state once the Syrian problems are settled and all these Israeli-hating Syrian terrorists and rebels have U.S. arms?

A Baltimore man of Egyptian origin was being held Thursday at the Anne Arundel County Detention Center after having been arrested at BWI Marshall Airport last week, when police said they stopped a man with 13 knives in his possession, authorities said. Amr Gamal Shedid, 24, of the 3200 block of N. Charles St., was in custody on $10,000 bail after Transportation Security Administration agents said they detected 13 knives in a passenger's carry-on luggage at the Pier D checkpoint on July 7, authorities said.

The Judiciary Committee of the House of Delegates will soon vote on two much needed bills aimed at protecting people from firearms. Neither bill will unduly burden responsible citizens who want firearms for protection, hunting or target shooting. We urge the committee to approve the bills and send them to the full house.The first bill would ban sale or other transfer of specified assault type-weapons in Maryland beginning this year and limit possession of such weapons to adults with permits beginning next year.

Just two weeks ago the legislative attempt to place reasonable new legal controls on assault weapons was thought to be as dead as the most recent victim of one of those alleged "sporting" weapons.But maybe not.Though the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee killed one version of the bill, the House of Delegates was passing its own version, by a decisive 80-55 vote. That House bill can now be taken up by the Senate -- if, that is, it can get out of committee.Both the House and Senate bills called for a ban on future sale of these terror weapons and for a limit on magazine size, no more than 20 bullets to a clip.

To hear John Danowski explain it, he had no idea what he was getting in Brendan Fowler. In fact, the Duke coach had not met Fowler until August of his freshman year. That is because Fowler had not contacted the Blue Devils coaching staff during the recruiting process. The faceoff specialist had simply applied and been accepted to the university on his own, and Danowski confirmed Fowler's matriculation only when he had contacted the coach of Chaminade (N.Y.) High School - Fowler's alma mater - in May of the athlete's senior year.

A woman shot Saturday in Pikesville by a Baltimore County police officer - after the officer thought she had pulled a weapon - turned out to be holding a replica of a semi-automatic handgun, according to police. Police had responded to the 3100 block of Northbrook Road in Pikesville just before 2 a.m. for a call about a suspicious person. When the officer arrived, he saw a woman standing in front of the house and saw her throw a large rock at the house, which broke a window, police said.

Does it occur to anyone in the left-wing Obama administration that arming Syrian rebels with modern weapons will result in arming a group of fighters who live just across the border from Israel ("The best bad option," May 2)? Does it dawn on anyone on the left who supports this president and this leftist administration what the future impact of high-grade weaponry will be on the Jewish state once the Syrian problems are settled and all these Israeli-hating Syrian terrorists and rebels have U.S. arms?

Israel and Syria continue to fight, Robert Downey Jr. continues to  pretend to fight, and in sunny, pastoral northern Pennsylvania, a former judge is still getting international attention a week after his sentencing over what amounts to a human-trafficking scheme. Welcome to your daily trends report for Monday, May 6, 2013. Mark Ciavarella, a former common pleas judge in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., was sentenced early last week for his role as a cog in the prison-industrial complex. Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, received kickback money from private jail operators to fill their beds with children as young as 10 without due process, often on first-time offenses.

I am outraged at the hubris of Congress to vote in favor of the out-of-touch NRA over the wishes of the vast majority of the public who elected them ("Tyranny of the minority," April 19). We are the only civilized country on this planet that allows unrestricted access to military-style weapons that were specifically designed to kill as many people as possible as fast as possible. And it shows: In Europe, the rate of mass shootings is a fraction of what it is in the U.S., even controlling for differences in the population size.

Now that the way has been cleared for the U.S. Senate to vote on a bipartisan bill to toughen federal gun controls, Americans should remember that the effectiveness of government regulations has limits. Ultimately, new laws will give Americans a false sense of security and further delay efforts to address cultural dysfunctions that give rise to so much violence. The Senate bill would require near-universal background checks, comprehensive federal regulations for gun transactions and tighter school security.

Washington -- A lawyer I know, prefacing his remarks bysaying he was making no moral judgments - do they ever? said that the gulf war was a good thing, that it would be a real shot in the arm for American business. ''Why?'' said I.''Weapons,'' he said. ''We've got the best in the world, and everybody saw that. They'll all want them. We've got something to sell now.''President Bush agrees, making no moral judgments either, and is urging American arms manufacturers to cash in on the free advertising broadcast during the short war. Get out there and cut that trade deficit!

WASHINGTON -- At the beginning in the galaxy of Republican presidents, there was Abraham Lincoln as the Great Emancipator. Then we had Ronald Reagan as the Great Communicator. Now, in George W. Bush, we have the Great Justifier. The current White House occupant demonstrated his talent for coming up with fluctuating justifications for his major actions even before setting foot in the Oval Office. In the 2000 presidential campaign that finally put him there, he peddled his plan for sharp tax cuts by arguing that with the massive federal surplus then existing, taxpayers had a right to get the extra money back.

The weapon used to kill a University of Maryland Eastern Shore student in February has a "unique orange and black camouflage handle" that investigators hope will "prompt the memory of someone who may have seen the knife before," Maryland State Police said Wednesday. Investigators released an image of the weapon, which has a three-and-a-half-inch serrated silver blade, for the first time at a news conference on the university campus Wednesday, and urged the public to contact them if they recognize it. They hope tips about the knife will help them identify three suspects they believe were involved in the killing of Edmond St. Clair, a 21-year-old junior biology major from Severn who graduated from Laurel High School in 2010.

The House of Delegates voted Wednesday to give Maryland one of the toughest gun laws in the nation, passing a bill that would ban the sale of assault-type weapons, set a 10-bullet limit on magazines and require fingerprints and a license to buy a handgun. Delegates altered the Senate's bill during more than 10 hours of emotional floor debate that lasted over two days. Key lawmakers said they expect the differences to be resolved quickly and the legislation sent to Gov. Martin O'Malley for his promised signature.