| Mayor Jackson's New Law To Eradicate Shootings |
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| Written by Jeff Garvas | |
| Tuesday, 11 September 2007 | |
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A slightly different version of this article appeared in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on September 22nd as a guest editorial in the Metro section. You can also find it online here: Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson's proposed gun law won't stop the killings A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. On Monday, September 10th, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson was flanked by Cleveland area Democrats from the Ohio House and Senate and announced the City's intention to submit legislation in the Ohio House to enact new statewide gun control as a solution to Cleveland's shooting epidemic. Anyone living in the Cleveland media market knows that Cleveland has suffered a rash of shootings over the past few weeks, many resulting in innocent people dying. Pressured by community out cry and activists to do something, Mayor Jackson proudly announced to at a press conference that any child, 14 or 15, could walk down an Ohio street "waving" an assault rifle around and there is nothing the city could do about it. This of course was quickly disputed by Cleveland Police Patrolman's Association President Steve Loomis, who told the Plain Dealer that such an act could potentially warrant arrest for inducing panic. We feel it might also warrant disorderly conduct charges too -- waving a gun around in a threatening manner is potentially menacing, too. In other words, it might not be a "gun" crime, but the act described is not technically lawful. Today the scope of this legislation has become much more clear. Surprisingly, the bill does only focus on an age limitation and a yet to be mentioned effort to make gun owners criminally negligently responsible should a minor or someone under 21 obtain their firearm. It's Safe Storage all over again by modifying ORC 2923.19 to read "Failure to secure dangerous ordnance or firearm", the change being the addition of the words "of firearm". The penalty is a first degree misdemeanor. Interestingly, the way this legislation is written, nobody under the age of 21 could hunt in Ohio with any firearm unless they were accompanied by an adult 21 years of age or older. Failure to comply with this legislation is a first degree misdemeanor for adults 18 but under 21, and for those children under the age of 18 they are deemed an "unruly child" and subject to the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. The fact is Mayor Jackson's own administration admits that their problem stems from people mostly 28 years of age and younger, yet their solution is another misdemeanor law. In order for guns in the hands of kids to really be a problem Jackson expects you to believe that kids under 21 are actually walking around with openly visible firearms. The fact is we all know they're clearly concealing these firearms -- which is a felony without a license that can't be ontained until the age of 21. The young girl who was shot in Cleveland died at the hands of a career criminal who was just returned to police custody by bail agents. He was already wanted by police for drug and weapons charges, and clearly prohibited from possession of a firearm anywhere in Ohio. Today, weeks after the killing, he remains at large instead of in a jail cell where he'd be if he wasn't released after being returned by bail agents. For what? Drug and weapons charges that clearly would make him "under disability" for firearm possession. The accused at-large shooter supposedly called television stations in Cleveland to apologize for the young girl's death and attempted to explain that he was merely chasing someone who stole his property. Shooting and killing someone who stole your property is aggravated homicide in Ohio, and its hard to believe that someone who would do such a thing would have left their illegal gun at home because they're not twenty-one yet. Cleveland doesn't have a problem that can be solved by more gun laws. Cleveland needs much more aggressive enforcement of existing gun, drug, and gang laws against those who are career criminals, drug dealers, gang members, and your average thug. Its a proven fact that you can not legislate common sense and decency. If a person is going to break the law, passing another law doesn't fix the problem - but it sure looks good on television. |