Well, they managed to do it and it didn’t take long at all. Just yesterday we were discussing how the city of Baltimore, Maryland had tied the 21st-century record number of murders at 342 on Thursday. And there were still several days to go until the end of the year. On Friday night another man was shot multiple times and at some point early Saturday morning he succumbed to his injuries and passed away. That was number 343, a higher death toll than any seen in the city since the early 1990s. (Baltimore Sun)

Baltimore police recorded the 343rd homicide of the year Saturday with the fatal shooting of a 32-year-old man in the Belair-Edison neighborhood.

Shortly before 11 p.m., city officers found the man lying in the 4300 block of Dudley Ave. in an area south of Belair Road and two blocks from Herring Run Park. The man had been shot multiple times and later died in an area hospital. Police did not immediately identify the victim.

Even in the midst of endless funerals with several taking place every week and sad crosses and other memorials to the fallen littering neighborhoods around the city, is it possible that something positive can come of this? Is there any chance that the citizens of Baltimore, long fed up with living in a killing zone, will take this stark milestone as a wakeup call?

Up until now, we’ve frequently examined some of the proposals that have been put forward to turn around this murderous trend. Some have seemed rather dubious while others offered promise. Even now, the new Police Commissioner is finally taking action on one such plan. Michael Harrison recently announced that he was withdrawing his previous objections to the return of a pilot program that would have planes with powerful surveillance cameras circling above the city 24/7.

The beauty of this program is that they had it in place a few years ago and it was actually working. Plus, it’s absolutely free to taxpayers, being fully funded by a pair of philanthropists from Texas. But people on the City Council objected to it over “privacy concerns” and it was canceled. Perhaps it will once again produce some positive effects.

But that episode with the City Council should serve as a reminder of what the real solution may require. The residents of Baltimore have continued to elect the same group of liberal Democrats, sending them back into office year after year. And this crew has regularly fought against tougher laws to deal with violent crime, particularly gun crimes. They have spent more time trying to punish the police than the gangbangers who are shooting up their neighborhoods. And now those neighborhoods have turned into sites where competing funeral motorcades are causing traffic jams.

Sometimes a new broom has to sweep clean. People are dying in droves out there. Forget the demographics and identity politics. If the people you are electing can’t get the job done and keep your families safe, it’s time to start looking elsewhere for candidates and – dare we say it – consider voting for some experienced conservative leaders who are willing to make the tough calls on violent crime and actually support the police. If you can’t manage that much then you should probably flee while you can and just abandon the city to the rats, the gangs and the drug dealers.