Dan Rodricks: Pledging ‘no leniency’ on gun crimes, Bates hopes to stop Baltimore’s bleeding | COMMENTARY

A major problem, he says, is this: Too many gun charges don’t stick; they’re either tossed as part of a plea bargain or dismissed altogether. Bates’ source for that is the same one I cited in this column a couple of years ago — a report from the Center for Gun Policy and Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The report found that, out of 10,600 cases involving gun charges, between May 2015 through May 2019, only 40% resulted in convictions, guilty pleas or a defendant being placed on probation for having or using an illegal gun. The Hopkins researchers couldn’t determine why the remainder of charges were dropped or defendants were found not guilty, and the report noted that such detailed information is “not routinely shared with police or the public.”