Opinion
Maryland – -(AmmoLand.com)- As of December 20, 2019, several bills have been added to the “Prefiled Legislation” bin at the Maryland General Assembly. This gives us an opportunity to develop a vision for how this next General Assembly Session will go.
I have updated the Maryland State Rifle and Pistol Association (MSRPA) 2020 Maryland General Assembly Bill Tracker with these initial bills and will be tracking daily for changes.
I will include a brief summary of what we are able to determine at this time.
House Bill 0004 / Delegate Atterbeary / Public Safety – Rifles and Shotguns – Secondary Transfers
Coming back for another bite at the apple, Delegate Atterbeary (Democrat, District 13, Howard County) has filed the same bill that failed last year. While we do not have actual bill texts as of 12/20/2019, the General Assembly website indicates that this legislation was “Introduced in a prior session as: HB0786”. Which means we will face yet another defense of our rights from the addition of a torturous registration and purchase process which will do nothing to reduce criminals getting their hands on firearms and simply focus as an attempt to break the backs of law-abiding citizens with red-tape, paperwork, fees, and delays. MSRPA Position: OPPOSED.
House Bill 0035 / Delegate Queen / Public Safety – Firearm Telematics – Study
An attempt at forcing the Maryland State Police to study the ability to track firearms and their usage in real-time. We have seen this proposed in other states, usually as a criminal justice action forcing the tracking of the usage of law enforcement firearms. This bill includes language requiring the MSP to study “telematics” for the retail firearms market. MSRPA Position: OPPOSED.
House Bill 0047 / Delegate Parrott / Public Safety – Handgun Qualification License – Training Exemption
There is no bill text available at this time and nothing to indicate this is a redraft of prior legislation. MSRPA Position – No Position.
Senate Bill 0039 / Senator Waldstreicher / Public Safety – Regulated Firearm – Definition
This bill adds two additional firearms to the list of specifically banned firearms. MSRPA Position: OPPOSED.
Senate Bill 0043 / Senator Simonaire / Licensing – Fingerprint Requirements
This bill would change the requirements for repeated processing of fingerprints in various licensing categories. We are still researching the potential consequences of the bill at this time. MSRPA Position – No Position.
Senate Bill 0055 / Senator Young / Income Tax Checkoff – Maryland Assault Weapons Buyback Fund
There are multiple issues with this bill, which will be heard in a committee that does not normally discuss firearms issues – Budget & Taxation. First, the bill assigns a label to “Assault Weapons” that is incredibly broad and has potentially sweeping consequences throughout the Maryland Statute. Secondly, it creates a fund allowing the Maryland State Police to buyback, for destruction or sale to the United States military complex, items from Maryland citizens that were never purchased from the State of Maryland in the first place. It is our opinion that “gun buyback” programs are a misguided attempt to currying favor without properly educating the public. They do nothing more than vilify firearms and law-abiding firearms owners, regardless of the legality of ownership/purchase method, all for the sake of swaying public opinion. MSRPA Position: OPPOSED.
With the significant changes in leadership roles within the Maryland General Assembly, we can predict that this year is going to be a very tough one on multiple fronts. We are calling on all of our members, friends, and interested parties, to get involved with contacting your legislators and politely/professionally expressing your concerns as constituents. Talk to your neighbors, family, and friends – we are all needed in this fight to protect our personal safety freedoms.
Sincerely,
Mike Doherty
Chairman of the Board of Directors & 2nd Vice President – Legislative Affairs
Maryland State Rifle & Pistol Association
About Maryland State Rifle and Pistol Association (MSRPA):
The Maryland State Rifle and Pistol Association (MSRPA) is the flagship Gun Rights organization in and for the State of Maryland. The Association offers both individual and club memberships. Support of the shooting disciplines and legislative activities is primarily through a systems of committees. All participants are volunteers. In the face of a near tidal wave of citizen disarmament occurring in Maryland, the MSRPA has played a critical part in drawing the line and standing firm for Gun Rights. Without this resistance, things would have been much worse and been so much sooner. Now the objective is to continue to develop new activists with numerous individual skills who will help us bring Maryland into line with the rest of the states which have made strong gains in protecting the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
For more information, visit: www.msrpa.org.
The time for being polite is over, all gun laws are unconstitutional, start acting like Americans.
It appears that another VA style uprising is needed to thwart the democrats from removing all our rights.
The fact that Americans allowed ANY limitation or denial of Rights at all should scare you.
Marylanders need to overturn the ridiculously unconstitutional ban on AR15’s and other commonly owned semi-automatic rifles, and get Constitutional Carry implemented. Since I left the state it has become the California of the East Coast.
AGREED!!!!!!!!
I dint know if you’re originally from maryland but I dont mean to offend but the reason, as I see it, marylanders get bent over constantly is because they’re all to arrogant and selfish, self absorbed and self centered, self aggrandizing and self serving to band together as a group and fight for someone else’s interest. Even in the gun (so called) “community” they are only concerned with what THEY (that individual) are interested in. You have the waterfowl bunch with their $10k shotguns, the military collectors, the deer hunters, the AR crowd, the hand gunners and on and on… Read more »
@Bill – Only been to Maryland a couple times – but definitely noticed their attitude last time I was there. Everybody honking all the time – to point one tunes it out completely. Apparently they object to others stopping for pedestrians, red lights or pretty much anything. It is also horrifyingly crowded with dinky low-speed roads everywhere. So glad I don’t live there. Funniest part was being at a party, at friend of my sister’s house, when someone asked how I can live in Texas – with rather clear prejudice against TX. Afraid I remained polite – but I’d rather… Read more »
Tyranny and treason come with a very steep price that includes arrest, trial and when found guilty; the death penalty. This can be effected by electric chair, tall trees short ropes and windy days, lethal injection, firing squad, cement shoes, road rash etc.. It is so obvious as to what is coming that those who are defined as tyrants and traitors and/or treasonous might want to reevaluate their beliefs in the constitution and the Scripture it is founded upon. You can push people only so far and then you get what’s coming to you. Make note of every treasonous name,… Read more »
@DB, “… brought up on charges, tried, found guilty and have their sentence carried out by the courts.” takes too long and is a huge drain on the logistical system. I think that the first bullet is a trial. The second is to make sure that the sentence is completed.
It just amazes me how they go thru hoops to disarm law abiding citizens but yet fail to disarm the criminal. Let me know when they disarm all the criminals & I MAY be willing to talk. There will still be this matter of the Constitution. SHALL NOT INFRINGE. All this coming from a state with one of the highest crime rates & strictest gun laws. Most likely one of the largest POLICE STATES in the USA. Cameras & police everywhere, how’s that working MD ?
Back in the 1970s, the SCOTUS ruled criminals did not have to conform to gun laws because that would violate their Rights.
You know, you just cannot make up the stupidity of a democrat SCOTUS.
“Today, we need a nation of Minutemen,
citizens who are not only prepared to take arms,
but citizens who regard the preservation of
Freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life.”
John F. Kennedy
Everyone wants to be a Patriot….until it is time to do patriot things.
In Baltimore, they will make it illegal to own a gun. It is ALREADY illegal to kill rats.
Rats have Rights, Americans do not.