Bates pushes for enhanced gun penalties, though critics question impact

Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates asked lawmakers Wednesday to pass legislation that would enhance penalties for illegally carrying a handgun, even as opponents said the bill would contribute to mass incarceration without improving public safety.

Bates addressed Maryland’s House Judiciary Committee as part of his ongoing quest to increase the maximum penalty for illegal handgun possession from three years to five years.

“This bill is not going to stop violent crime overnight, nor is it the fix-all to how we address gun violence in our state,” Bates said in his written testimony. “But what it does is send these offenders a message that we are not playing, and we are serious about holding them accountable for their actions.”

The bill is sponsored by Del. Frank M. Conaway, Jr., a Baltimore Democrat, and has support from a number of members of the city’s delegation.

Under current law, the maximum possible penalty for illegal handgun possession is five years if the offender is 18 to 20 years old, but only three years for older offenders. Bates said the proposed legislation would remove that discrepancy and also raise the stakes for people who illegally carry guns, including first-time offenders.

“Three years is not significant enough to talk about a harsh penalty,” Bates said. He argued that under the 2016 Justice Reinvestment Act, those charged with misdemeanors can be released after serving 25% of their sentence.

For a three-year sentence, that often amounts to time served, Bates said, which means the defendant can stay close to home in a local detention facility. A longer sentence would send defendants to farther-flung state facilities and give them a more significant punishment, he said.

“Five years is enough time that we can get their attention and hold them accountable for their actions,” he wrote. “Now they are rethinking whether or not they want to chance carrying that illegal weapon.”

The bill has unanimous support from Maryland’s 24 elected state’s attorneys, according to Steven Kroll, the executive director of the Maryland State’s Attorneys’ Association. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott also submitted written testimony in support of the legislation.

Opposing the bill is an unusual coalition of criminal justice reformers and Second Amendment advocates.

Heather Warnken, the executive director of the University of Baltimore School of Law’s Center for Criminal Justice Reform, said there is no evidence to support the bill’s premise that longer prison sentences will lead to less gun violence.

“Much like the disastrous war on drugs, we will not incarcerate our way out of this problem,” Warnken said.

In written testimony, Warnken argued the bill does nothing to address the underlying reasons that city residents might carry handguns, including for personal safety in communities plagued by violence and because of a lack of trust that police officers will offer true protection.

“The reality is that most people are not aware of nor weighing criminal penalties when making the decision about whether to possess a gun, especially when motivated by their own survival,” Warnken wrote.

The Maryland Office of the Public Defender, ACLU of Maryland, Baltimore Action Legal Team and a number of other organizations signed on to Warnken’s written testimony.

The district public defender for Baltimore City, Marguerite Lanaux, also said the bill would harm communities by taking defendants further away from their support networks, which is a key factor in recidivism. The legislation would also disproportionately hurt Black men, she said, who are arrested and convicted at higher rates than their white counterparts.

“This bill is promoted only on the hope, without any data that offers proof, that the impact of fear of increased penalties will ‘hopefully prevent many homicides,'” she said, quoting Bates.

“This is a dangerous ideology that promotes isolating and removing people from the community for longer periods of time for a misdemeanor offense.”

Second Amendment supporters also spoke in opposition to the bill, arguing that it would harshly penalize legal gun owners who accidentally carry their weapons past the expiration date of their wear-and-carry permits.

Bates responded that the bill will still allow prosecutors and judges to use their discretion in cases where a shorter sentence is appropriate. Defendants who go three years without another conviction and meet other requirements could also be considered for probation before judgment, Bates said.