Deep blue Baltimore doesn’t have much going for it. Okay, there are some cool places by the harbor and Fells Point, and there is Kim Klacik. But the list of charms in the “Charm City” soon runs out. The rest of the joint seems like a downscale shooting gallery. We here in the preppy sailing town and state capitol of Annapolis try to avoid it at all costs because of the municipal presumptions of this article.

Most people are rational economic players. Drug dealers, who show excellent entrepreneurial spirit, don’t deal drugs as a hobby. They do it because of the big profit margins. Gambling and prostitution fall in the same category, with some exceptions per prostitution. Some crime does pay if you do it right and don’t get caught. At least it pays in the material sense and on this astral plane. The downside though, the potential legal and moral risks, preclude sensible people taking part in it.

But what if, using the free market, using capitalism, you could put a dent in the most heinous of crimes? What if, like Pope Leo I and Attila the Hun, you could bribe an aggressor not to commit murder and mayhem? One guy, who seems to have some first hand knowledge of the subject, may be on to something.

FNC: “An activist in Baltimore, Md., has come up with a unique solution to solving the city’s high murder rate — paying killers not to kill, according to a report. ‘I can relate to the shooters, guess what they want? They want money,’ Tyree Moorehead, an activist told press in Baltimore. Moorehead, who the Baltimore Sun reported spent more than a decade in prison on a second-degree murder conviction tied to a shooting at 15, suggests certain measures the city has taken to stop the bloodshed aren’t enough. ‘I’ve talked to these people, I’ve seen the shooters, it’s a small city, I know who the hustlers are.’ Richmond, Calif., previously tested the controversial strategy of paying people not to commit crimes in order to combat gun violence that plagued the community. It resulted in the city seeing its lowest murder rate in more than 30 years. Richmond also saw a 66% reduction in firearm assaults causing injury or death between 2010 and 2017, according to advancepeace.org.”

Now while anybody who is listed by the media as an “activist” is suspect, the Bond girl-like named Baltimore citizen at least is making an effort. Not to mention, his reasoning, while likely unique, is based on a well known criminal motivation: avarice.

Appealing to that, instead of to typical urban liberal Democrat vague civic altruism, or embarrassingly lame anti-drug educational efforts, has a much better chance of succeeding, as the Richmond, CA, example above shows, than anything Baltimore has tried to date.