Martin O’Malley was in New Hampshire last week, and he thinks gun control is a winning issue for Democrats even if it hasn’t worked in Maryland, yet.
“It’s hard to measure prevention,” O’Malley said, before laying the blame for increased homicide rates at the feet of the two Baltimore mayors, Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake and Catherine Pugh, who were elected after he left the mayor’s office to become governor.
What’s O’Malleys winning formula? Is it the one that has turned Baltimore into the murder capital of the nation?
Requiring fingerprints and gun training for all purchases; imposing a mandatory 7-day wait period; banning the sale of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition; and banning the sale of what O’Malley insists on calling “combat assault weapons.”
Democrat, blah blah, blah, gun safety, blah blah blah, common sense blah blah blah, oops – murder rates rose. Hey, not their fault.
O’Malley insists that crime went down while he was mayor of Baltimore. I’m wondering if that’s because they changed the definition of crime? Democrats have been known to play with the language or the rules to make problems appear to disappear. A slight of hand that worked so well in Broward County Florida that it allowed a repeat offender to go unpunished, acquire firearms and shoot up the school that has since lead to this new era of gun control Martin O’Malley says is a winning policy for Democrats to run on.
While I’m not all that excited about Republican chances in November (at least not yet) it has nothing to do with more progressive gun-ban foreplay. The same people who are going to turn out because they hate Trump are the same people who think Martin O’Malley is a frigging genius when it comes to public safety.
There’s no net win there. And if Republicans can get their priorities and message straight: continue to protect jobs and job creators, economic growth, lower and fewer taxes, national security/illegal immigration, America first foreign policy, school safety that makes sense, and they come out with a platform to defend and extend gains in these areas.
Democrats can hate on guns all they want because they can’t explain this: Violent Crime, Murder, Rape, and Robbery in Maryland are all higher per/100,000 residents than in 2013. Aren’t those the sorts of crimes O’Malley-esqe common sense gun laws™ are supposed to reduce?
We’ll never really know because as the former governor pointed out, prevention is hard to measure.
It’s harder when you’re stupid. It’s a lot harder when you’re dead. And Democrat gun policy makes for more dead people just about everywhere it has been tried.
