Eye on Annapolis: O’Malley administration lobbies for gun control bill
Posted: 12:54 pm Thu, March 21, 2013
By
Daily Record Business Writer
With Gov. Martin O’Malley’s gun control bill apparently in danger of being watered down by a House of Delegates committee, O’Malley and Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown are imploring voters to call their delegates to urge approval of legislation that contains what would be some of the nation’s toughest gun laws.
Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown (File photo)
Brown held a press conference outside the State House on Thursday morning, flanked by state’s attorneys and law enforcement, during which he urged the House to take favorable action on the the bill, which has already been passed by the Senate.
O’Malley, meanwhile, appealed to supporters through his O’Say Can You See Political Action Committee, saying lawmakers were considering stripping a measure in the legislation that would ban some semiautomatic rifles.
“According to recent news reports, some members of the Maryland House of Delegates are trying to water down the ban on assault weapons,” O’Malley wrote. “They want to continue allowing the sale of weapons like the Bushmaster M-4 Carbine and the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle in Maryland. These weapons are similar to the ones that were used in the mass shootings in Newtown and Aurora, and by the Beltway Sniper.
“We need this common sense ban. Please call your Delegate and urge him or her to SUPPORT the Assault Weapons Ban in the Firearms Safety Act of 2013.”
O’Malley’s bill, identified as the administration’s top priority during this legislative session, would require handgun owners to provide their fingerprints, complete training and obtain a license while banning so-called assault weapons, such as the popular AR-15 rifle.
Thousands have descended upon Annapolis in the last several months to protest the bill, which some say tramples on Second Amendment rights.
To read the latest news about the General Assembly, visit the Eye on Annapolis blog.
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Comments
So far, no major news media have reported that the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore have recorded more than ONE MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND emails sent by residents through their website to legislators and governmental officials opposing the Governor’s gun control bill. Anyone who wishes to verify the number of these emails and the process by which they were sent can visit the AGC’s website or use the contact information which is provided on the site. As of the last census, the population of Maryland numbered approximately 5,884,000. That the sheer number of these opposition emails has gone unreported is a crying shame and speaks poorly of the objectivity of our media.
It has also to my knowledge gone unreported that there is no deadline in the Governor’s bill for the State Police to have the necessary licensing infrastructure up and running so that prospective handgun purchasers can obtain the licenses necessary to purchase a handgun by October 1, 2013, when the license will be required under the bill. This means that in the months after October 1, 2013 in which it will take the State Police to set up its infrastructure (even if this is done diligently and in good faith), no gun stores will be able to sell handguns in Maryland because no one will have been issued the necessary licenses to buy them. Accordingly, since all but rural gun stores make a large percentage of their sales by selling handguns, it is foreseeable and likely that many, if not most, gun stores will go out of business. One indeed might wonder if this is the true intention of the Governor’s gun control bill.
[Second sending - typos corrected.]
So far, no major news media have reported that the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore have recorded more than ONE MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND emails sent through their website by residents to legislators and governmental officials opposing the Governor’s gun control bill. Anyone who wishes to verify the number of these emails and the process by which they were sent can visit the AGC’s website or use the contact information which is provided on the site. As of the last census, the population of Maryland numbered approximately 5,884,000. That the sheer number of these opposition emails has gone unreported is a crying shame and speaks poorly of the objectivity of our media.
It has also to my knowledge gone unreported that there is no deadline in the Governor’s bill for the State Police to have the necessary licensing infrastructure up and running so that prospective handgun purchasers can obtain the licenses necessary to purchase a handgun by October 1, 2013, when the license will be required under the bill. This means that in the months after October 1, 2013 which it will take the State Police to set up its infrastructure (even if this is done diligently and in good faith), no gun stores will be able to sell handguns in Maryland because no one will have been issued the necessary licenses to buy them. Accordingly, since all but the most rural gun stores make a large percentage of their sales by selling handguns, it is foreseeable and likely that many, if not most, gun stores will go out of business. One indeed might wonder if this is the true intention of the Governor’s gun control bill.