On New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, Baltimore police confiscated 29 guns and made 41 gun-related arrests, reports the Baltimore Sun. It’s a dangerous but prolific way to start another year on the war on “bad guys with guns,” which Police Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld III has made into one of his signature programs and pet phrases.
Last year, his cops seized more than 2,600 guns and made more than 1,100 gun-related arrests. In 2008, they took 2,708 firearms off the streets and put 1,226 suspects in handcuffs. Says the commissioner: “For every day, week, month and year I’m in this job, I’m going to continue to agitate. It’s wrong for the wrong people to have guns. [] These aren’t guns that somebody’s hunting rabbits with. These are the weapons we see every day on the streets of Baltimore doing robberies, shootings and murders. There is a cavalier attitude about carrying guns on the streets of our city.”