Maryland State Rifle and Pistol Association urges all of our members to reach out to their Delegates to oppose House Bills 432 / 819 / 888 / 1302 and Senate Bill 707.
We Need Your Calls Today – These Bills Are Being Fast Tracked For Quick Approval With Minimal Debate.
Maryland –-(Ammoland.com)- 2018 has turned into an all-out assault on the Second Amendment-protected rights of all law-abiding Marylanders. Instead of trying to focus on the actual issues that plague our state, some in the General Assembly have decided to do make a frontal attack on our rights, conflating our rights into being THE cause of all violence issues in Maryland. Instead of focusing their energy on meaningful reform, they have decided to make an already prohibitive landscape even more difficult to navigate.
We need all of our members to reach out and contact their Delegates (for House Bills) and Senators (for Senate Bills) to express their ardent objections to further encroachments on our protected civil rights.
House Bill 432 – Public Safety and Violence Prevention Act
A $10M boondoggle that is quite transparent in its machinations to provide money to anti-gun think tanks with the supposed aim of preventing violence. However, Delegate Lierman focused the bill on euphamistic mechanisms to look at firearms, with no mention of other forms of violence. Maryland does not have a “gun violence” problem. A gun is absolutely useless without a thinking mind and body to pull the trigger. Maryland State Rifle and Pistol Association can think of many reasons, as we are certain our members and the public can also, to use $10M for the betterment of Maryland.
House Bill 819 – Handgun Permit Review Board Repeal
A partisan-motivated dismantling of a citizen review board that has been in operation for 45 years. The House of Delegates vehemently endorsed citizen oversight of the Baltimore Police Department when they modified the BPD Citizen Review Board in 2016. Now, some highly-partisan members have flipped to the opposite side and want to completely remove citizen participation and transparency in the monitoring of government officials when it comes to the Handgun Permit Review Board. This flip flop is due solely to the fact that Governor Hogan appointed ALL of the current members after those appointed by Governor O’Malley resigned.
House Bill 888 / Senate Bill 707 – Rapid Fire Trigger Activators
These poorly worded bills attack firearms accessories and criminalizes the mere possession of these items. MSRPA feels these bills are unconstitutional takings under both the Federal and Maryland Constitutions and the leadership of the legislature could care less. These bills are on the fast track and we need voices, direct and succinct, to contact ALL members of the General Assembly to oppose these useless bills. As I mentioned before, these bills will lead to the creation of instant criminals on October 1 of this year for the mere ownership/possession of pieces of non-serialized plastic and metal based on the nebulous phrase of “standard rate of fire”. This bill will do absolutely NOTHING to prevent a tragedy similar to the illegal activity in Las Vegas last year and only seeks to penalize and criminalize law-abiding persons on Maryland soil. These devices have not been proven to be used in ANY criminal activity in Maryland. The Maryland State Rifle and Pistol Association does not agree that any bans on firearms or firearms accessories are good public policy and testified in opposition to these bills when they were heard in committee.
House Bill 1302 – Extreme Risk Prevention Orders
This bill allows “Any other interested person” (along with others more clearly defined) to make a sworn statement, that is presumed to be with good intentions, that will lead to the confiscation of firearms on an “ex parte” basis. This means that a law-abiding Maryland citizen can be forcefully disarmed by law enforcement officers and have their property confiscated PRIOR to having a hearing a court of law and being able to face their accuser in an adversarial court proceeding based on the simplist of legal standards (“preponderance of evidence”). MSRPA feels this bill is a clear violation of due process.
We urge all of our members, and subscribers to this email list, to contact their Delegates and express their significant opposition to these bills. If you need information on how to contact your legislators, please enter your residential address at https://mdelect.net to generate a report showing contact information. Make your voices heard with phone calls, faxes, emails, and letters!
Warmest regards,
Mike Doherty
2nd Vice President – Legislative Affairs
About Maryland State Rifle and Pistol Association:
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. Visit: www.msrpa.org