Friday, March 16, 2007
Reporters Notebook: Brady Campaign is gunning for Brochin unless he toes its line
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Gun control advocates, emboldened by their success at defeating an opponent in November, are now targeting a Baltimore County senator whom they see as an obstacle to a proposed assault weapons ban.
‘‘We want to pass the assault weapons ban. We don’t want to have to replace a substantial part of the state legislature, but we know the people of Maryland want overwhelmingly for this to pass,” said Peter Hamm, the Brady Campaign’s communications director. ‘‘It’s business.”
In the Brady crosshairs is Jim Brochin, who sits on the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, which is considering the ban.
The campaign purchased airtime on WBAL radio in Baltimore for ads in which Brady President Paul Helmke says the bill would ban military-style assault rifles criminals are using to outgun police.
Brochin, the ad says, ‘‘is the key vote needed now to pass this bill.”
In an interview, Brochin said the ban unfairly hurts law-abiding gun owners. ‘‘If you can get criminals and bad guys to register their guns, sign me up,” the second-term senator said.
If the assault weapons ban were important, Brochin said the Democratic majorities in Congress would reinstate the federal ban. ‘‘They know gun control doesn’t work, and everybody wishes it did,” he said.
Gun control is what cost John Giannetti his Senate seat last year, Hamm said. ‘‘We announced we were making it our mission to unseat him. We unseated him twice,” Hamm said.
Giannetti voted against the ban in JPR and lost the 2006 Dem primary to Jim Rosapepe. Giannetti then changed parties to run against Rosapepe as a Republican. He lost again. Rosapepe is one of the co-sponsors of the assault weapons ban, which was submitted by Sen. Mike Lenett.
Brochin should let the bill reach the Senate floor, Hamm said. ‘‘Senator Brochin is entitled to his vote, but he is not entitled to block the full Senate from voting for this thing,” he said. ‘‘If he wants to vote his conscience, he can vote his conscience when the full Senate votes on this thing.”
Although at least five other JPR members oppose the ban, the Brady Campaign is only targeting Brochin. ‘‘We’re never going to land Alex Mooney because he’s a strange visitor from another planet,” Hamm said. But the organization is willing to use its might on others.
‘‘Whoever blocks this bill in the Maryland legislature is going to earn our opposition. And we’re going to be committed to that opposition, and we’re going to be invested in that opposition,” he said. ‘‘The soul of Senator Giannetti deserves that. ... He should not have died in vain.”
— Douglas Tallman