Bad Behavior

Montgomery Journal
2/23/2001

We are tempted, after last week's public hearing on the latest gun-control proposal in Montgomery County, to switch our position on the legislation and issue blanket support for any proposal that comes down the pike. The behavior of the gun-control opponents was so bad, we are tempted to say any control measures, up to and including muzzles, are appropriate.

We will not change our position, of course. Council President Blair Ewing's proposal to cut off county funding for any group that allows gun shows on its property is a heavy-handed attempt to keep gun shows out of the county fairgrounds in Gaithersburg. It is unfair and unnecessary in a state with such tight gun-control laws.

But the rudeness of Ewing's critics cries out for censure. Scores of the opponents, including members of the so-called Tyranny Response Team, a vigorously anti-gun-control organization, packed the hearing last week. They were loud, booing boisteriously at backers of the bill. They were obnoxious, shouting ``liar, liar" at those who disagreed with their position. And they were mean: At one point, a man shouted to a woman testifying about a family member who was killed that the shooters had killed the wrong person.

The proposal is bad, no doubt about it. But in trying to stop it from becoming law, some of the proposal's opponents were their own worst enemies. Their behavior was inexcusable and shameless.

Once again Montgomery County residents are being treated to the spectacle of their can-do county executive so intent on doing that he treats carefully laid-out rules and procedures governing that doing with all the respect of used sweat socks.

In an article in yesterday's Journal, reporter Taylor Lincoln explained how County Executive Doug Duncan's plan to build a youth center in a former elementary school in Wheaton ran roughshod over county regulations governing the sale or lease of former school buildings. In its zeal to get the center built, the Duncan administration apparently ignored a moratorium on disposing of old school buildings while new rules are being adopted and gave school and state officials the impression the deal was done when, in fact, it could not be.

The most curious defense of the actions comes from Duncan spokesman David Weaver, who, when presented with the evidence, said: ``There are other people in the county who specialize in process. We specialize in results."

Terrific. So the ends forever justify the means?

Duncan is a doer, no doubt about it, and in Montgomery County, that still seems refreshing. Further, a youth center sounds like a wonderful use for that building.

But none of that excuses the Duncan administration from following the proper procedures in getting from Point A to Point X. The procedures are a safeguard, a guarantee that the thing will be done right. To ignore them shows an imperious disdain for rules that is unbecoming, overbearing and just plain wrong.