As MD legislators prepare gun-related bills, Trump administration looms

As Maryland legislators prepare bills aimed at addressing gun violence, the recent presidential election and its potential repercussions are top of mind for lawmakers and for Second Amendment and gun safety advocates.

During the upcoming General Assembly session, legislators plan to introduce at least two bills focused on gun safety — the Comprehensive Community Safety Funding Act, a bill from last session that will tax guns and gun accessories to fund trauma and violence intervention prevention programs, and a bill that would require and enforce the relinquishment of firearms within a domestic violence setting. With both bills, legislators are aware of possible implications by the incoming administration.

Del. Bernice Mireku-North, sponsor of the Comprehensive Community Safety Funding Act, said in an interview that the new Trump administration might impose tariffs, which would create a hardship for Marylanders.

“I’m conscious of making sure that this bill does not become too onerous on the Marylander that owns a gun and ammunition, but at the same time recognizing that we have to get the funding from somewhere because when people and families are traumatized, they can’t work,” Mireku-North said. “We’re trying to do all that we can to make Maryland stronger in terms of more income, more revenue. We need to make sure our communities are as whole as possible.”

Mireku-North said she and other legislators are discussing whether the bill will have a sales tax component.

Karen Herren, executive director of Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence, said the Comprehensive Community Safety Funding Act is likely more important now than it was before the presidential election. Herren pointed to the reduction in gun violence over the last few years as evidence of federal, state and local programs aimed at preventing gun violence working.

“Given what has happened in the national landscape (recently), we’re very worried that these programs are going to see reduced funding from the federal government,” Herren said. “We need there to be resources … we need there to be money that we’ve created to put toward these programs.”

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But legislators and advocates are hesitant to propose more taxes in any capacity, Herren said.

Sen. Jeffrey Waldstreicher, who sponsored the Comprehensive Community Safety Funding Act last session, said this session could see a federal push for reciprocity in gun licensing.

“As with the first Trump administration, Maryland will need to be nimble in reacting to what is happening at the federal level,” Waldstreicher said. “The goal is to preserve the very rigorous but appropriate gun licensing structure in Maryland so that we retain our rights to keep our communities safe.”

In addition to the tax bill, legislators are also hoping to pass the firearm relinquishment bill, a new bill this upcoming session that aims to create a better system to remove firearms from those against whom a domestic violence protective order has been served.

Sen. Shelly Hettleman, sponsor of the firearm relinquishment bill, said the goal of the measure is to keep families safe.

“There are a lot of holes in the system that enable people to continue to possess their firearms who probably should not,” Hettleman said. “Our system right now is a bit of Swiss cheese, and what I hope we will do is plug some of those holes and make it more consistent throughout the state. By doing that, we will keep families safer.”

Herren said the current system is not a process that automatically triggers an action if someone fails to relinquish their firearm.

“What we want to see is the creation of a process that tries to ensure that whether or not the person complies, that there’s an automatic thing that’s going to happen if they do not,” Herren said. “We don’t want to create something that is unmanageable — we want to create something that works in every case.”

Hettleman said it’s often difficult for a survivor of domestic violence to go to the police and involve the court system, but to not have the system protect them can be even more devastating.

“We want to make sure that a person, and we know most often it’s a woman, who is going to use the court system in Baltimore County has the same chances of being protected as somebody who is in Garrett County,” Hettleman said, noting each county has it own process for checking and tracking whether guns are being relinquished. “It shouldn’t matter what your ZIP code is (for) the protection you’re afforded through the court system.”

Hettleman said that while legislators passed a number of gun-related bills last session, the firearm relinquishment bill is still necessary.

“This bill is a bit different in that it’s not about impinging on anybody’s 2nd Amendment right,” Hettleman said. “It is about making sure that the community is safe and that people who have threatened to use violence are not in a position to do so with a firearm.”

Meanwhile, gun rights advocates said they have a quieter session coming up.

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Mark Pennak, president of Maryland Shall Issue, said that as of yet, there is no major gun-related legislation being planned. But in the absence of legislation is much gun-related litigation.

“People may be waiting for the courts to sort out the law after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen,” Pennak said.

Bruen drastically changed courts’ framework for evaluating 2nd Amendment challenges, requiring the government to show that the regulation at issue is consistent with the country’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

For the pair of gun-related bills legislators plan to introduce this General Assembly session, much also hinges on how the state handles what legislators describe as its ‘budget problems.’

“If the solution ends up being (that) we have to start cutting programs that address services that are violence prevention-related, any of those types of things, it’s going to have a ripple effect into what our gun violence is looking like,” Herren said. “So many of these things are interrelated, and you can’t separate out gun violence and say we’re only addressing it with ‘gun legislation.’ The problem is more broad than that.”