Fox News is reporting that the City of Baltimore, where restrictive gun laws seem to disarm law abiding citizens but do not deter violent criminals, just endured a 24-hour period in which 14 people had been shot, five of them fatally.
Nearby Washington, D.C. earlier this year lamented at the number of homicides logged in 2018. According to the Washington Post, “Homicides in the District surged in 2018, driven by what police say are the more frequent use of guns in crimes and more fatal outcomes when a shooting occurs.” Yet in the District, it is very difficult for average citizens to legally carry firearms or have them in their homes.
According to Fox News, in Baltimore, “Homicides have reportedly been up 10 percent year-over-year.”
Like Chicago, which seems to surpass some entire states when it comes to annual murder data, Baltimore and the District of Columbia are perennial examples of restrictive gun control laws that simply don’t work, critics say.
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In a separate report, Fox News noted, “In 2011, there were 211 homicides in Baltimore; by last year, that number had risen to 307.”
The common thread with big city violence is something that gun rights activists have been trying to explain for decades. Criminals do not obey gun laws. The push for so-called “universal background checks” now in progress on Capitol Hill may please the far left Democrat voting base, but it does not appear to be gaining traction anywhere outside of the Nancy Pelosi-led House of Representatives. Odds of stricter gun control legislation making it through the GOP-controlled Senate seem far less likely.
The Hill reported that the Democratic House Leadership has indicated that gun control measures aimed at “enhanced background checks” will be voted on next week. The bills include one for “universal background checks” and the other is aimed at closing what anti-gunners call “the Charleston loophole” that allowed a mass church shooter to obtain a gun in 2015.
The House Judiciary Committee passed both bills on Feb. 13 and they face a full floor vote before heading to the Senate. Most observers believe they will pass in the House on a fairly strict party line vote.
What may alarm right activists is a measure authored by Democrat Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, the House Majority whip. This bill would extend the time for a waiting period to ten days “and allow a buyer to request a review if the background check hasn’t been done by then. The gun sale can go forward if another 10 days go by without a response from the background check system.” That translates to a potential 20-day waiting period. Clyburn’s legislation is dubbed the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2019, H.R. 1112.
But, since criminals don’t typically bother with background checks or any other bureaucratic red tape, rights activists argue that, like other gun control measures, this one will not accomplish anything.
