From the Guns Across America Maryland Facebook page
Ten days away from implementation of Maryland’s more stringent laws on gun purchases, licensing and training, Second Amendment advocates might be wondering if it could possibly get any worse for gun owners.
One House of Delegates candidate from Bethesda, Jordan Cooper, issued a proposal Wednesday that lives up to the worst fears of gun owners. But it might have appeal inside the Beltway in the district now represented by Sen. Brian Frosh, floor leader of the new control law.
Cooper’s plan includes a total ban on assault rifles, biennial renewal of gun licenses, and government confiscation of guns not properly licensed or renewed.
Here’s the full text of Cooper’s proposal, tied to Monday’s killings at the Washington Navy Yard, where the shooter’s original weapon of mass murder was a shotgun, still one of the firearms easiest to obtain.
The full text
“In the light of this week’s horrific massacre of innocent civilians at nearby Washington, D.C.’s Navy Yard, Jordan P. Cooper today released his legislative plan to begin combatting gun violence in Maryland and ensuring the safety of all our citizens.
The proposed legislative language reads:
WHEREAS firearms have taken the lives of far too many Americans; and,
WHEREAS firearms have increasingly been used in the perpetration of national tragedies; and,
WHEREAS current firearm regulations have proven insufficient at thwarting public massacres; and,
WHEREAS encouraging responsibility and accountability among gun owners is in the interests of all Marylanders; and,
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED:
1. THAT all assault rifles, without exceptions for those firearms
grandfathered in recent legislation, be outlawed in Maryland.
2. THAT to provide for responsible gun ownership in Maryland, all
firearms will be registered in a statewide database and that all firearm registrations will be regularly renewed on a biannual (24 months) basis.
3. THAT all firearms lacking registration with the state or having
expired registrations be surrendered to the State and that the State proactively seek to retrieve and confiscate all firearms with expired registrations exceeding six months.
4. THAT every firearm recovered from the scene of a crime or
discovered to be in the possession of a convicted felon is cross-listed with this firearms registry database.
5. THAT to penalize straw purchasing of firearms, the owner of
every firearm used in a homicide or robbery be penalized in accordance with the determination of the Secretary for the crime regardless of their (non)-involvement in the crime.
Cooper has a master’s degree from John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Yes I’m a Democrat from Texas. So yes this clown would not even win down here. Texans have more gun owners then Maryland. Even many liberal Democrats are gun owners. As a Liberal Democrat who knows what a liberal is. Mr Cooper is no Democrat. He is a strong anti 2nd Amendment person. Many Democrats would rather go after the cause of gun violence like strong sentences of criminals who use a gun and close the loophole on mentally ill people who are legally insane and whose mental illness will never go away. Besides if Mr Cooper thinks Texas doesn’t bar convicted Felons and dishonorable discharge people from having guns. He is wrong. Texas used to have a loophole on the category I mentioned. It was closed about a century ago
Mr Cooper will learn how politics is local. The voters are thinking this clown must not understand local customs. The people in his district aren’t dumb and he thinks they are stupid. He just made many people from Clarksburg to Bethesda pretty mad.
The Democrats should defeat this clown. Besides he lives in Rockville. I live in Texas and he wouldn’t even win down here. Is Bernie Sanders giving him political advice.
stand up against this law with lethal force if necessary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cooper you are going to start a war the gov. can’t win,they couldn’t control the streets in iraq and afgan and you think you have any chance in hell on our streets.Gangs already control 90% of the streets in every big city.For every patriot you kill you will create 10,pull your head out of your ass.its not a hat.
I am tired of hearing about the gun regulations being the problem. the whole damb problem is the aftermath. today if you kill someone you claim insain or mentally disterbud and get a smack on the wrist. I say change the punishment, go back to old days you shot someone, you get a brick room a the gun you shot with and one bullet, if your to chicken to pull the trigger you get hung. its time we the people start making lawbrakers pay and not in an air conditioned cell with three meals a day and cable. they say it cost to much to execute murderers last time I was at the store bullets aint that high, if a murderer can affored them I think the gov. can do the same.
This bastard communist cooper will not prevail!!! The first thing a communist regime does is to make unwarranted claims that firearms need to be banned for the public safety,yeah for the tyrannical govt’s safety!! All of these communists are doing obamas bidding to oppress the citizens for personal gain,they are traitorous to the highest order! It was sort of unnerving but I was recently stopped in my vehicle for a tail light that was out,I have an NRA membership sticker on my rear windshield,when the cop got out of his car and approached the drivers side of my vehicle he pretty much hugged the side of my truck and I could see he had his hand on his holstered pistol! I am in no way a threat and my appearance shows that,but because of which I believe is the NRA sticker I am looked at as dangerous by this cop! This is the stigma that this criminal administration in the wh has placed on law abiding citizens that support their 2nd amendment Constitutional rights!
First I think its funny that my last post disappeared, second , if they want to make laws like this, do it in your own counties and stay the hell out of Frederick County, Western MD for that matter! I don’t need some tree huger, butt wipe from PG, Montgomery or Baltimore City telling me how to live my life, what I can and can’t have, or that I have to subsidize their hometown because they would rather allow illegals and drug addicts to mooch off the tit of the state so they can get more progressive voters!
If you want my guns, that are legally owned, there will be a fight!as for Montgomery county being overrun, that’s correct. All of those liberal Congressman and there staffs all have residences in Montgomery County and they vote. Time to run them out of town.
This guy is an idiot. How do new laws make people who break the current laws not break the new laws? Law abiding citizens are just that, law abiding. Criminals are law breakers so how would some new law alter their behavior? Again, this guy is an idiot!
that’s called statistical probability, dingleberry. Of course there are more gun-deaths where there are more guns.
Here’s the thing. If our great leaders, or even you since you are so smart, wanted to curb firearm related deaths you would not target long guns. You would target handguns. Handguns account for something like 90% of firearms related deaths in this country. No one goes after these – they go after the big bad scary “assault” weapons. Why is that?
Because, just like the TSA in the airports, violating our civil rights, its about security theater – its a show. They’re grandstanding on a hot button topic to get votes. They don’t want whats best for you. They want what keeps them in power. End of story.
Mr. Cooper’s brilliant exercise in legislative drafting really needs a paragraph 6 to complete it.
“6. And I don’t like guns and scary things and want to live in a world of rainbows and unicorns and people with guns and scary things don’t let me live in that world and I’m just going to hold my breath and turn blue.”
Seriously, putting aside the utter inanity of his statements and the fact that nothing in his “bill” would have prevented the Navy Yard shooting (a pump action shotgun isn’t an “assault rifle” even under the looniest definition of that term), what kind of idiot proposes a bill that would allow an undefined “Secretary” decide on the proper punishing of people who have violated no law? It’s hard to count the number of Constitutional provisions paragraph 5 ignores, but it is hard to imagine a proposed “bill” with more plain Constitutional violations.
.
Let me ask those of you who live in Maryland a simple question. Is it something in the water, or has your state simply lost its mind? It just passed a number of plainly unconstitutional bills that seem part of a “massive resistance” strategy to the Supreme Court’s decision in Heller and now you are thinking about going further. Do you really think that disarming law-abiding people is going to make your state safer? (Believe it or not, the drug gangs of Baltimore are not going to be giving up their guns to honor your new laws, and indeed are probably going to welcome having the law abiding citizenry disarmed). And do you really believe that outlawing cosmetic features on common weapons is a way to stop violence?
You reap what you sew, and when you sew political fantasy pretending to be sound public policy you usually are going to reap a whirlwind of problems. You’ll know what I mean after some natural disaster when some predators come to your neighborhood and you find that you have nothing to stop them with except rainbows and unicorns. They might not be quite up to the task.
Let me ask those of you who live in Maryland a simple question. Is it something in the water, or has your state simply lost its mind?
I think it’s the latter. I drink the water here all the time and never once did I feel the need to take away anyone’s rights. And I live in Montgomery County which has the worst infestation in the state.
NRPax: Good luck living there in the belly of the beast. It is amazing how so many reasonably intelligent people can be so dumb about issues like this be so clueless about the phenomena of unintended consequences.
You know what is really ironic? I moved here from CA because it was worse.
“… and that the State proactively seek to retrieve and confiscate all firearms with expired registrations exceeding six months.”
Going to resort to bashing down doors, eh? That’ll go over well.
He’s a grad from the Johns Hopkins BLOOMBERG School of Public Health. No connection there… no way.
Same rules should apply for all state police and private security. Only let the NG and Feds have the assault weapons.
“Only let the NG and Feds have the assault weapons.”
That sounds like Maryland thinking. Glad I live in Virginia. Oh, by the way… how do you extract those “assault weapons” from the hands of the gangbangers in Baltimore?
I really have to move out of this state and into VA. You guys seem a lot more sane.
Generally, we do pretty well… a review of VA’s collective sanity may be in order if Terry McAwful wins in November, however.
Scott:
Perhaps you miss the point. People against “assault weapons” really don’t much care if the gang-bangers have assault weapons because they figure that the gang-bangers won’t leave the inner city to come to their nice neighborhoods. No, what they really don’t want is for you to have an “assault weapon” (whatever they define that to be), because if you have one their treasured highly active state no longer can be guaranteed to have a”monopoly on violence.” And besides, you might live in their neighborhoods and they think guns–expecially black guns–are yucky and frightening.
So if I paint my rifle something bright and pleasing to the eye, do you think that would be less scary?
I recommend a bright pink shade, and you might want to think about adding something like a “Hello Kitty” or perhaps “Celebrate Diversity” sticker on it to convince your Montgomery County neighbors that your rifle doesn’t sneak out at night to commit mayhem.
In fact, given how Montgomery County voted in 2012, you might want to go the whole way and slap an “Obama 2012” sticker on it. Then, when asked about the rifle by some neighbor who is worried that it will go off and destroy the neighborhood in the blast, you can explain that while you are personally absolutely opposed to gun ownership, you think it important for guns to be in “progressive hands” until all the “rightwing NRA wingnuts” can be rounded up and have their weapons confiscated. When you explain that you currently own the rifle because you are taking a strong stand in favor of the President and against the NRA, your neighbors might decide they should do the same.
Hm. I’ll have to invest in a brighter green for my 1911 as well.
Yeah, but with a 1911, you always have to ask “What would John Moses Browning do,” and I’m pretty sure he be much more earth tones than that.
Yes… we should pain our rifles “hello kitty” pink… that’ll assuage liberals’ fragile nerves.
If Mr. Cooper gets any state-provided protection, he should be stripped of it…Then, see what he says…
I won’t comply with this law. And if you try to come to my home and take them, I’m going to do my best to kill anyone you send. I don’t know how much more plainly or unambiguously I can state it.
I don’t expect to survive or retain my freedom after something like this, but if petty tyrants like this man are truly bent on making criminals out of law abiding citizens and then persecuting them with storm troops who will raid their homes in the dark of night while wearing masks, then I have no doubt whatsoever that Mr Cooper will soon be joining the rest of us in the afterlife, courtesy of someone they didn’t yet raid.
Extreme idealistic legislation never passes. If a Red State proposed a low for elimination of all gun licensing, all background checks, etc that wouldn’t pass either. We need legislators with some practical sense of being able to get things done and not just blather.
Ok MD, time to show them a little Colorado love, as well as NOT complying with these laws. Recall them and then repeal the laws. End of story. The more they push the harder we have been pushing back.. its YOUR turn now.
There’s no recall in Maryland or in most of the East.
True, Len !
But, they can be voted out of office… But, Liberal Bethesda & Montgomery County voters won’t do it…
Read that Last Paragraph to me ONCE AGAIN! a REgistered Gun that has been used in a homicide or Robbery wether or not the owner is involved. because of the registration the owner will be prosecuted for the CRIME?????
Oh yes, they are trying to scare people into not buying them too.
Maryland Sheriffs have indicated they will not try to confiscate people’s guns under the upcoming October 1, 2103 law.
Does Jordan’s proposal mean there will be a Maryland GESTOPO regiment or Assad-like forces eliminating Maryland citizens who don’t comply with this left wing loon’s ideas?
What part of the second amendment don’t you understand Jordan?
Contrary to the previous commenters, I’d regard Cooper’s proposal as a good step in the right direction. Guns are not regarded as playthings in many other countries and they should not be regarded as playthings here. In the wrong hands, guns kill.
Ksteve, in the wrong hands cars kill, knives kill, hammers kill, . . . Hell I could kill you with just about anything. The gun crimes are being committed by criminals with no regards for the laws our worthless politician put in place. These types of laws only strengthen the criminal and weaken the law abiding folks.
jwc425, it’s much more difficult for ANYONE to kill anyone else with a knife or a hammer than with a gun. Gun crimes are committed by the criminally-inclined AND by people who are mentally-challenged or suddenly get very angry at their spouse, their live-in partner, or a neighbor AND by children who find their parent’s loaded gun and think it’s just a toy. The fewer guns in circulation. the better off we will all be. The alternative is the Wild West, with everyone carrying a loaded gun on their hip. Even in that circumstance, the law abiding person (unlike the guard at the Navy Yard) would have to shoot first.
and yet more murders are committed with blunt objects than are committed with guns of any sort. Don’t believe it? Look up the crime statistics maintained by the FBI.
Here’s another study for you, oh so smart one who hides behind “Guest”::
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/09/20/more-guns-equal-more-deaths-study-finds/
I own guns even the black scary ones and I don’t believe it. It is true for rifles, but not all guns.
So in other words, it’s perfectly acceptable to discriminate against a whole group of law-abiding citizens because someone breaks the law.
ksteve:
Great idea. Let’s make the gun laws as tough as possible! One country has the right idea on this. It has made the private ownership of firearms close to illegal, and to keep the country from being overrun by privately owned guns anyway, it has only one legal gun store in the country–in the capital–and that gun store is run by the military to ensure that weapons don’t get into the wrong hands.
It is the type of common-sense, tough gun regulation that is needed to keep people safe, and to use your extremely wise words, keep the country becoming the Wild West.
That country is Mexico. Apparently, even when you only have one gun store in the country it is possible to bring in fully automatic rifles, hand grenades, and grenade launchers by sea from North Korea. And when only the gang bangers have guns, and when they have more firepower than the police, they can rule towns and cities at will and drive the murder rate to many times the levels in the US. Who would have thought?
They will argue that Mexico isn’t as “developed” as the U.S. and that it will be “different” this time.
It’s funny. Juarez has some of the highest murder rates ever seen. Right across the river is El Paso, which has extraordinarily low crime rates.
The people are the same. El Paso is a mainly Mexican-American town, with a very large percentage of the population having close relatives living in Juarez and surrounding areas. The economies are intermixed. And while Juarez’s police are deeply compromised by the cartels, so are many law enforcement officers in El Paso and the surrounding areas.
Yet, with the very same people on both sides of the border, and the same cartel pressures, the cartels don’t openly gun down people on El Paso’s streets on try to take over neighboring small towns in Texas. Could it have something to do with the fact that Texans own over 100 million guns and that most familes in Texas are well armed while Mexican civilians can be thrown in jail for merely owning a bullet? Might cartel bullies be less likely to go after people if they can fight back and put the gunmen at risk?
Well, we can be confident of one thing. Most Maryland politicians will never even consider such questions when campaigning to deprive the citizens of the state of their federal constitutional rights.
Many gun rights advocates cite Roger D. McGrath, the author of the book “Gunfighters, Highwaymen, & Vigilantes: Violence on the Frontier” and the study called “Violence and Lawlessness on the Western Frontier”, as saying violence in the real old west of the U.S. of A. was far less than the violence of today. Is Mr. McGrath wrong? Especially when he says the following:
“Popular wisdom says that generations of living on and conquering frontiers have made Americans a violent and lawless people. Popular wisdom is wrong. So is much scholarly literature that has drawn
conclusions about violence and lawlessness from anecdotal evidence and specious assumptions. The kind of crime that pervades American society today has little or no relation to the kind of lawlessness that occurred on the frontier if Aurora and Bodie are at all representative of western communities. Robbery of individuals, burglary, and theft occurred only infrequently and rape seems not to have occurred at all. Racial violence and serious juvenile crime were absent also. The homicides that occurred almost invariably resulted from gunfights between willing combatants. The old, the weak, the innocent, the young, and the female were not the targets of violent men. In fact, all people in those categories would have been far safer in Aurora or Bodie than they are today in any major U.S. city. Even most smaller cities and towns are far more crime ridden and dangerous than were Aurora and Bodie.
There simply is no justification for blaming contemporary American violence and lawlessness on a frontier heritage. The time is long past for Americans to stop excusing the violence in society by trotting out
that old whipping boy, the frontier. On the contrary, it would seem that the frontier, instead of representing America at its worst may have, in many respects, represented the nation at its best.”
SOURCE: http://www.guncite.com/wild_west_myth.html
Also, how is one person or a group of people able to survive an home invasion with guns against armed criminals bent on injuring and most likely killing the would-be victims? I ask because usually if the victim(s) call(s) 911, by the time the police arrive, the victim(s) is/are already injured and/or in most cases dead.
In the wrong hands, guns kill.
Right… like those “wrong hands” of the Mexican drug cartels? How about the “wrong hands” of the al-Qaeda terrorists Obama supports in Syria?
asshole needs to get a good locker room beat down from the big kids..
Abortions have taken over 50,000,000 American lives, with over 1,000,000 each year for the last couple decades. Perhaps we should make those illegal and execute any who try perform them regardless of setting and all who attempt to assist will be imprisoned for life. None of America’s wars have killed as many people.
That hacks like this exploit such tragedies while ignoring the nearly 100,000 infants killed each month demonstrates their hypocrisy.
What a good little commie socialist with no record of accomplishing anything, hell he could be President in mere weeks. Grow up you little pantywaist, the world is not like they taught you at Vassar. (Seriously? Vassar? Are you a eunuch?)
No, they don’t want to take our guns.
Sure.