Baltimore Mayor Scott is all talk, no action on gun violence

Again, we get one bromide after another about gun violence from Mayor Brandon Scott and Police Commissioner Michael Harrison but nothing about what either sees as a means of getting illegally carried guns and the thugs carrying them off the street (“13-year-old girl shot last week in East Baltimore dies; man charged with first-degree murder,” Nov. 16). The mayor again wrings his hands and calls a young girl’s shooting “senseless and tragic” and basically chides the shooter for “reckless activity” and improper conflict resolution.

The police commissioner opines that “this brazen cowardly act is totally uncalled for.” Not to be facetious, but is there ever a brazen cowardly act that is called for? The closest that the mayor comes to any illegally carried gun removal policy is to simply state that some disembodied “we” have to continue to get what he describes as “illegal guns” off the street. That’s it?

As a aside, I wish he would stop using the “illegal gun” terminology. Firearms are a legal consumer product in this country, so the deadly problem is the illegal carrying and use of the gun, which may change for the worse when more legal carrying is allowed since Maryland is now a “shall” issue concealed carry permit state, per Gov. Larry Hogan’s decree based on a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.

Then what? More bromides?