A bill to outlaw mere possession of paintball, BB and pellet guns working its way through the Baltimore City Council will not make city residents or police officers safer. In fact, it would have just the opposite effect.
Police say they can link more than 100 robberies over the past year to the guns. They support Council Member Helen Holton?s, D-8th District, attempt to ban them.
“The sophistication of toy guns have reached such epidemic proportions that you can?t differentiate between what is a toy and what can do harm,” Holton said at a committee hearing. “Officers should not have to make a split second decision: Is it real or is it fake?”
Yes, it is confusing for police officers to distinguish the fake from the real. Holton cited two cases of police shooting people who pointed toy guns at them. But distinguishing between real and fake weapons is not confusing for the law. The law makes no distinction between those who brandish real guns and toy guns to commit crimes.
And characterizing the similarity of toy guns to real as a problem of “epidemic proportions” makes no sense. Toy guns always have looked like real guns. That?s the point.
Giving police the power to arrest any citizen they see on the street with paint, pellet or BB gun also will result in nothing but increased street strife and more weapons concealment. Besides, restricting gun use does not stop criminals. They are not the ones who register handguns with the state or apply for a permit to carry one as Maryland law requires. They certainly won?t pay any attention to a city ordinance.
Laws attempting to prevent firearms crime have almost a century of failure to their credit now. If gun control doesn?t work on real guns, what makes anyone think it will work on toys?
For the vast majority of people who use guns in a legal manner, the maximum $1,000 proposed fine or a year in jail for using, owning or selling them is ludicrous. Holton said she would exclude property designed for recreational paintball use from the bill, but the whole issue is rife with unintended consequences.
Remember, committing a crime with a “toy” gun in Maryland right now carries the same penalties as committing the same crime with a real gun.
The City Council would better serve public safety by tackling structural reforms ? like finding a way to better align police arrests with charges.
With about 20 percent of the 100,000 arrested each year released from Central Booking without charges and another 24 percent who see their charges dropped in court, police are wasting time rounding up the wrong people. Asking them to enforce a toy gun ban will only drain more time from removing violent felons from Baltimore?s streets.
