(2010-01-12) Though insisting they still have the ability to “put uniforms where we need them”, MSP recently acknowledged that fewer troopers than yesteryear perform public safety services. This continues a trend. Eight years ago a gun control law called ballistic fingerprinting resulted in MSP rolling fewer troopers on the highways, since cash was diverted to hire lab technicians on a system that has yet to function right. Today even more social experiments divert strength from core police operations. Leadership wants the federal grant money that comes with running trendy task forces, and what officer wouldn’t rather cash his pay check for serving back at the office (and get a gold star in the jacket for promotion) instead of driving a beat at 3AM? Bad guys you chase on paper are nowhere near as dangerous as bad guys you chase down in a tough neighborhood. Leadership today creates incentives for the wrong behavior.
Seven years ago, as MSP ramped up its lab operations – and reduced public services – John Mohammed killed ten people in what has been called the ‘beltway sniper attacks.’ (He was a terrorist – not a sniper.) But people were also terrorized by the midnight knock on the door from police in full black velcro mode, who shined lights in their faces and demanded “where is your AR-15?” Like a scene out of Red Dawn, police harvested data from shops and ranges, compiled databases, and tracked gun owners, not leads. One and possibly two victims died after the real killers tried to make contact with police, yet couldn’t get attention because officials fixated on guns, veterans and white vans.
Mohammed was just executed in Virginia, but the legacy of intimidation from that era lives on. Using gun records seized years ago (and expanded since then) Montgomery County’s “sniper task force” has spent more money and persecuted more people over gun ownership since the real terrorists were caught than during the shooting spree. And all the while fewer cops each day head out to wage the real battle for public safety. Again … this is the trend.
Which brings us back to ballistic fingerprinting. Even without the high-tech angle, we see reports of judges looking skeptically at testimony involving “toolmarks” (the correct legal description of analysis of this type) used in study of bullets, shell casings and firearms associated with crime scenes. Imagine the credibility issues to overcome some day should Maryland’s system finally suggest a real lead between crime scene evidence and some firearm purchase. It would probably not be accepted in court, and at that point, further evidence obtained on the back of an affidavit claiming a shell case match would be excluded as fruit of the poison tree. That is worse than useless.
Watch closely in the coming legislative session. The real extremists will be the officials who champion creation of more task forces, and defend retention of ballistic fingerprinting restrictions. Anyone willing to spend our taxes on a failed system just to deny a few gun purchases, in an era of rising crime and reduced revenue, really is hard core.
The legislative session will kick off in a few short weeks, the last session of this four year term. It should be a zesty one! The state budget is in the dumpers, and while it would be austere in any case because of the national economy, it is far worse, indirectly, because of gun control. Yes, gun control. In the late 1990’s, Gov. Parris Glendening spent lavishly on creation of new entitlements, and the fiscal impact of those commitments is mounting. Why so much? Payola for special interests was one of the many prices he paid to in order to buy the votes needed for change in social policy. In effect he wrote a check against this year’s tax money in order to enact gun control a decade ago.
Understanding that dynamic is key to our defenses in the coming session. In the last decade, we have made clear it is very expensive to enact gun control. Bad officials in swing districts pay with their seats. We know there is always a price at which it is worth it to leadership to enact something anyway, so our mission is to ensure that when they do a cost-benefit analysis, the political cost they will pay to enact gun control will far outweigh any benefit they get by making a craven deal with special interests and cronies. This year gun grabbers will have few resources to play with in the first place, so our mission is to ensure that the price tag on a vote against freedom is prohibitively greater than what they have available to spend. (And yes, we must show everyone that the value of working with us is great too!)
Only your energy in organizing the faithful among our voting base, together with your donations to the PAC, let us condition the battlefield in this way. A strong war chest now telegraphs that we stand ready to defend friends and defeat foes. We can weather this session – as long as we make clear that it will never be cheap to infringe liberty.
Pre-filed gun bills are already in the hopper, ranging from penalty increases for gun misuse (that will only further vilify guns in the public eye) to unrealistic pro-gun measures from legislators who only want to posture so they can send you fund-raising letters later. There are plenty of technical measures in between. The battle is joined.