(2008-02-17) You'll notice a pattern on the penalties bills: we oppose them all . We have no particular interest in sticking up for a criminal element, but two important facts stand out. First, no objective study gives the barest hint that fiddling with punishments will reduce crime rates. (It won't.) Second, the chief use of increased penalties is by a prosecutor to intimidate someone charged with a crime to cut a deal. In Maryland, that means a predatory state's attorney with a mission to grab guns will have bigger legal weapons to train on potentially innocent gunowners getting the squeeze.
However little policy merit these bills have, the political case is weaker. Pro-gun legislators submit many such bills based on a theory that posturing against gun misuse will somehow give them a moral high ground for defending gun ownership. Nothing could be further from the truth . To say it as kindly as we can, it's stupid for a legislator to think ‘law and order' bills do us any favor. It's not the gun, it's the criminal, right? These bills say Okay, so sometimes it is the gun . Once you concede the liberal axiom, then your fall down the slippery slope is inevitable. ( Ahh, so we all agree guns make things worse. Now let's just tune details on their control.) The public sees one side demand a total gun ban and the other demand zillions years in jail for gun misuse – what conclusion will they reach but that “guns are a problem?” Ultimately, liberals who want to abolish all guns are happy when we pay to put the legal apparatus for a ban in place, accomplishing half the job for them. This lets them save their political capital to finish the rest of the job later. What matters is not how a bill sounds but how its law is applied by officials with an agenda !