(October 8, 2000) To city administration, taxpayers in Takoma Park represent a bottomless barrel of cash marked "social engineering."

Last year about this time we stopped the City of Takoma Park from illegally advancing a total ban on handguns. They immediately set about appointing a committee to study the matter, and since then have schemed and plotted to find other ways to infringe citizen rights. (In characteristic form, the committee has proceeded illegally by holding secret meetings, refusing to publish minutes, and denying opportunity for pro-gun citizens to provide any alternate views ... all in violation of state sunshine law.) At the apparent request of their handlers in the Attorney General's office, new gun ban proposals were delayed in order to go forward this fall. They want maximum visibility for gun control as the General Assembly session looms ahead. Timing is everything, after all. The final solution, err, report is out. Call 301-270-1700 and request that they mail you your copy today. Don't take "no" as an answer.

Of course, it's not like city administrators don't have plenty of other controversial affairs unfolding in Takoma Park. The latest involves a bevy of cops under investigation for feeding the homeless. Now, normally feeding the homeless is considered a humane thing to do. The problem was they were feeding them to their police dogs. Police there and in Prince George's County have long had a rock-'em-sock'em reputation, now manifest as a string of cases where their K9's allegedly mauled citizens already in custody. In the past, the blue wall held firm: "The perp had it coming." As cracks in the blue wall open up, the tale of how some cops routinely abuse those under arrest can emerge.

Readers here know that embarrassing government gaffs (like being caught treating citizens like doggy treats) usually translate into louder calls for gun control. Politicos need something to distract from real problems, after all. (So it is in Baltimore too, where an officer was just caught fabricating reports and evidence in order to make a cocaine bust; of course, Baltimore is home base for GunStoppers, Kathleen Townsend Kennedy's latest program, paying $200 per report of someone carrying a gun.) The louder administrators rant about guns, the more real problems they have to cover up. Leading indicators all portend more fights coming up soon.

The pattern of civil rights abuses perpetrated by police in Maryland is gradually gaining more public attention, as it should. It's no coincidence that the vast majority of these cases arise in the urban areas most aggressively demanding that police target gun owners at all costs. When it's administration policy to infringe on some citizen rights, who can be surprised when cops occasionally confuse which are the rights to protect and which are the ones to abuse?