{"id":418074,"date":"2021-04-13T14:58:33","date_gmt":"2021-04-13T18:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=418074"},"modified":"2021-04-13T14:58:35","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T18:58:35","slug":"maryland-dems-kill-crime-bill-amid-baltimore-murder-spike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/maryland-dems-kill-crime-bill-amid-baltimore-murder-spike\/","title":{"rendered":"Maryland Dems Kill Crime Bill Amid Baltimore Murder Spike"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmaryland-dems-kill-crime-bill-amid-baltimore-murder-spike%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=418074&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div readability=\"33.364485981308\">\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">State, local Dems push to slash police budgets, decriminalize drug needles, ban ICE facilities<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\">\n\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"736\" height=\"514\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1688.jpeg\" class=\"w-full lazyload blur-up wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 736px) 100vw, 736px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1687.jpeg 736w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/GettyImages-913775470_736x514-300x210.jpg 300w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/GettyImages-913775470_736x514-703x491.jpg 703w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" \/><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tDeflated balloons hang from a lamppost where a person was killed on Feb. 3, 2018 in Baltimore, Maryland. \/ Getty Images\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/collin-anderson\/\" title=\"Posts by Collin Anderson\" rel=\"author\" class=\"text-red-700\">Collin Anderson<\/a> \u2022 April 13, 2021 2:41 pm<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div readability=\"104.26367461431\">\n<p><span>Just days after Baltimore&#8217;s progressive mayor announced a task force aimed at slashing the notoriously violent city&#8217;s police budget, Maryland Democrats killed a bill that would enhance penalties for those who use guns to commit violent crimes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The state&#8217;s Democratic-controlled House of Delegates refused to vote on the Violent Firearms Offender Act before the 2021 legislative session adjourned Monday night. For the second straight year, lawmakers rejected the GOP-backed anti-crime package, which would strengthen penalties for violent gun crimes and close a loophole that allows drug dealers to avoid felony charges when using a gun to sell drugs, among other provisions.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The move came after Maryland Democrats passed a bill requiring all rifle and shotgun sales between private citizens to go through a licensed dealer, a provision that President Joe Biden has <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/guns\/biden-gun-speech-filled-with-falsehoods\/\"><span>endorsed<\/span><\/a><span> at the national level. Republican state Senate minority whip Michael Hough argued that the bill would hurt law-abiding gun owners while doing nothing to address violent crime, noting that &#8220;there hasn&#8217;t been data \u2026 of one homicide as a result of a person-to-person sale of a long gun.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In addition to gun control, state and local Democrats pushed forward with policies that critics say will erode public safety. Progressive Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott on Thursday announced a task force that will work to reduce the city&#8217;s police budget over the next five years, which he said &#8220;is about reimagining what public safety is.&#8221; Maryland Democrats went on to repeal the state&#8217;s police bill of rights, decriminalize drug needles and syringes, and ban Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities in the closing days of the legislative session, prompting a scathing rebuke from GOP governor Larry Hogan&#8217;s political group.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;While the already horrifying murder rate in Baltimore continues to rise, the House of Delegates was more focused on jamming through sanctuary city bills than passing Governor Hogan&#8217;s common-sense reforms to hold violent criminals accountable,&#8221; Change Maryland Action Fund spokesman David Weinman said. &#8220;How many more Marylanders have to die until the legislature starts taking this issue seriously?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Democratic House of Delegates speaker Adrienne Jones did not return a request for comment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Even with bipartisan support, the Violent Firearms Offender Act failed to clear Democrats&#8217; supermajority in the state legislature. Republicans pushed the bill to address what they called a gun violence &#8220;crisis&#8221; in Baltimore. The city saw 348 homicides in 2019, just five killings short of its deadliest year on record. While homicides dropped slightly to 335 in 2020, the year still marked Baltimore&#8217;s sixth most violent since 1977. Both murders and non-fatal shootings are on pace to increase in the city in 2021.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Democrats&#8217; refusal to take up the Violent Firearms Offender Act, Hogan noted Friday, is at odds with Baltimore residents\u2014nearly 63 percent of whom are black. Eight-five percent of Baltimore residents and 84 percent of African Americans statewide <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/issues\/poll-shows-near-unanimous-support-for-anti-crime-bills-spiked-by-md-democrats\/\"><span>expressed support<\/span><\/a><span> for the bill, according to a February 2020 internal poll shared with the <\/span><i><span>Washington Free Beacon<\/span><\/i><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Scott&#8217;s push to further reduce Baltimore&#8217;s police budget comes less than a year after he voted to eliminate more than $22 million in police funding as city council president. The progressive touted the move as &#8220;just the beginning,&#8221; assuring activists who painted &#8220;DEFUND THE POLICE&#8221; on a nearby street that he would continue to &#8220;reduce Baltimore&#8217;s budget dependence on policing.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In addition to Baltimore, more than 20 major cities voted to reduce police budgets in 2020 following George Floyd&#8217;s death. The movement has picked up steam among liberal activists and lawmakers in recent days following the police-involved fatal shooting of Daunte Wright in Minnesota. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) responded to the shooting by calling for &#8220;no more policing, incarceration, and militarization&#8221; in a Monday <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RashidaTlaib\/status\/1381745303997534216\"><span>tweet<\/span><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>While Tlaib contended that her push to end policing stemmed from law enforcement officers being &#8220;inherently and intentionally racist,&#8221; a Gallup poll released in August 2020 showed that 81 percent of black Americans want police presence in their communities to remain the same or increase.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>State, local Dems push to slash police budgets, decriminalize drug needles, ban ICE facilities  Deflated balloons hang from a lamppost where a person was killed &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2312109,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1688.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Maryland Dems Kill Crime Bill Amid Baltimore Murder Spike","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1688.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Maryland Dems Kill Crime Bill Amid Baltimore Murder Spike","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2312109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}