The Washington Post
Tuesday, July 3, 2001; Page A18

Illegal Guns and the District
Editorial

"Illegal gun trading is rampant on the streets of the nation's capital, which has one of the toughest gun control laws in the country."

-- The Washington Post,

March 8, 1981.

Nearly two decades later:

"The District, which bans all guns except for those used by law enforcement officers, maintains one of the highest gun violence rates in the country."

-- The Washington Post,

Dec. 1, 2000.

Last Friday, a D.C. Superior Court judge sentenced Carlton Blount to 64 years to life in prison for fatally shooting Natasha Marsh and Andre Wallace, both 17, last year. Were it not for Mr. Blount, the popular Wilson High School couple by now would have completed their first year in college. Instead the former football team co-captain and honor roll student were buried side by side in identical baby blue caskets, dressed in their graduation robes. All because of foolish pride, uncontrolled anger and a gun.

Their brutal murders -- knocked to the ground in a volley of shots, then shot in the head at point-blank range, so close that the gunshot left soot on Natasha's face -- could not have happened quite that way without Mr. Blount's easy and quick access to his "hammer," slang for a gun. The quarrel between Carlton Blount and Andre Wallace, which turned into a bleacher-clearing brawl during a school athletic event, ended up as a senseless and vicious crime of violence because Mr. Blount could get his hands on a means of shooting someone to death. "Its lethal ending has a lot to do with guns and guns in this city," Judge Russell Canan told the courtroom last week. "What started out as what some of us would consider to be a schoolyard brawl turned into a murderous rampage" because of access to an illegal gun, he said. What a sad but familiar refrain in the District of Columbia.

Street slayings are especially hard on a city that has made buying or selling a handgun unlawful since 1976. And the effort to stem the flow of guns has not been limited to a ban on sales. Gun violence laws have been toughened. Gun buyback and amnesty programs have been tried. City officials have resorted to just about every tool available to reduce the numbers of illegal handguns on District streets and in neighborhoods. Unfortunately, the District's effort to make it hard for criminals to arm themselves is constantly undercut by states where gun sales are legal.

The flanking states of Virginia and Maryland are cases in point. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms released a study six months ago that showed more than half of all guns recovered in crimes committed in the nation's capital were purchased from gun dealers in neighboring Virginia and Maryland. Nothing new there. Drying up the city's street arsenal requires turning off the supply of handguns from around the nation. The criminals know it. Congress does, too. Unfortunately for the District, Congress doesn't care.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10779-2001Jul2.html

What do they(anti gun politicians)expect by passing all these insane gun laws???