Baltimore mayor to push for tougher gun laws

Posted: 11:00 am Thu, November 11, 2010
By Associated Press

BALTIMORE — Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake says she plans to lobby the General Assembly for much tougher gun laws.

Rawlings-Blake said Wednesday at a meeting of criminal justice leaders that she wants to make illegal gun possession a felony. She’s proposing a minimum 18-month sentence and a maximum of 10 years for those arrested with an illegal, loaded firearm.

Mayor Sheila Dixon pushed for an 18-month minimum in 2009, but the effort failed, with key lawmakers saying they oppose mandatory sentences.

According to the mayor’s office, 82 percent of the jail time imposed by the courts for misdemeanor gun offenders this year was suspended. Sheryl Goldstein, director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, notes gun offenders in New York face stiffer penalties than what Rawlings-Blake is proposing.