The agenda for Maryland: It’s fewer guns, more jobs
When Wes Moore first ran to be Maryland’s 63rd governor, his pitch came down to this: “No matter where you start in life,” he would often tell his audience, “you deserve an equal opportunity to succeed.”
In signing into law legislation to restrict who can carry firearms and where they can be carried, as he did Tuesday, and to make it easier for individuals convicted of a crime to have their records expunged once they meet certain criteria, Governor Moore has made his most serious effort to date to provide that opportunity. And no place in Maryland better represents the importance of these reforms than Baltimore, where young Black men are not only most at risk of becoming the victims of gun violence, but face serious barriers to gainful employment, a challenge often exacerbated by the burden of a criminal record. To take more guns off the street while also giving formerly incarcerated individuals a better shot at a productive life is not something to be taken lightly — both are, at their heart, anti-crime initiatives, and they renew hopes of better, safer days ahead for Maryland and its largest city.
Whether these latest efforts at gun control will prove long-lasting remains to be seen. The package of bills signed by the governor are a response to the
U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Bruen decision, which declared unconstitutional certain types of gun restrictions (although exactly which under the court’s revised standards remains clouded in legal dispute). Thus, lawmakers in Annapolis attempted to fill the gap with legislation like the Gun Safety Act of 2023 (Senate Bill 1) prohibiting guns from being carried into certain places — government buildings and schools among them — with exemptions for law enforcement, security guards and some others.
The governor also signed bills to limit who can obtain a license to carry a concealed firearm (a measure that also contains Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates’ sought-after increase in prison terms for those caught carrying guns illegally), to require Maryland State
Police to better track firearms surrendered under protective orders as well as place greater restrictions on gun storage to help prevent youth suicides. Will these efforts survive a threatened legal challenge (a call renewed just last week by Republicans in the state legislature)? That’s not certain but it’s surely worth the effort given the lives lost to shootings each year made possible by the veritable flood of firearms into Baltimore and beyond.
Meanwhile, legislation to make it easier to expunge criminal records raises the prospect that those individuals who have served their time and seek to follow the straight and narrow path can have every opportunity to do so. As astonishing as it may seem given Maryland’s reputation as a socially progressive state, it’s restrictions on erasing nonviolent criminal acts from one’s past are unusually harsh. Any claim that expungement amounts to being “soft on crime” is sheer lunacy given the obvious harm caused by the absence of such opportunities. Too often, the burden of a criminal record heightens the chances offenders will return to their bad choices of the past. You did your time? You proved yourself
capable of turning over a new leaf ? Why then must you face the prospect of having doors slammed in your face? And, of course, the individuals most likely to be harmed by this barrier are young Black men.
This is not to suggest that this handful of public safety bills will by themselves cure what ails our communities including continued fatal shootings in Baltimore that recently surpassed the unhappy milestone of 100 deaths. As we’ve noted so often in the past, the problem of gun violence is complex, long-standing and not easily overcome, rooted in concentrated poverty and racial prejudice. But the steps the governor put his signature on this week are clearly part of the solution. The fewer guns on the streets and the more decent-paying jobs available the better for all. Politicians like to crow about how reducing crime is the highest priority. Actions like these demonstrate a willingness to do more than talk that talk.
Sometimes, an “equal opportunity to succeed” means an opportunity not to be shot outside your home or school and to be employed in a decent job even if you have made mistakes in the past.