By Rachel Bluth
Capital News Service
Senate President Mike Miller at podium and House Speaker Michael Busch discuss gun safety legislation. CNS photo by Rachel Bluth
Days after the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals sent Maryland’s assault weapon ban back to a lower court for strict review, top Democrats in the state legislature announced new measures to strengthen gun safety laws.
Senate President Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch on Wednesday announced three new gun safety bills, alongside Democratic sponsors and cosponsors in the House and Senate.
One bans guns on college campuses; one bans anyone on the FBI’s terrorist watch list from purchasing a gun in Maryland; and the third requires judges to inform anyone convicted of a domestic violence offense that they must surrender their weapons
Miller said he has six grandchildren on college campuses, and he wants them to be “gun-free sanctuaries.”
“None of us want our children to be exposed to gun violence when they’re off at school, whether it’s walking into kindergarten or walking into graduate school,” said Sen. Richard Madaleno, D-Montgomery, who is sponsoring the legislation that would ban guns on all college campuses in Maryland. Del. Ben Barnes, D-Prince George’s, is sponsoring the bill in the House.
Guns as defense
House Minority Whip Kathy Szeliga from Baltimore County, a candidate for U.S. Senate, said she was not convinced that banning guns on college campuses would keep people safer.
“My aide, her son was at Virginia Tech when the shooting occurred,” Szeliga said. “Her reaction was if someone had a gun, maybe lives would’ve been saved.”
Madaleno warned against only thinking of mass shootings when considering gun safety. He said he was more concerned with individual instances, like suicide or relationship violence.
“We need to dispel this Hollywood-driven myth that any of us can turn into James Bond and respond to some sort of incident,” he said.
Another bill in the package, sponsored by Sen. Jamie Raskin and Delegate Will Smith, both Democrats from Montgomery, is meant to keep guns away from people convicted of domestic violence.
Preventing domestic violence
Currently under Maryland law, felons and those who have been convicted of abuse aren’t allowed to own or buy guns, but Raskin, who is running for Congress, said the problem is enforcement.
This law would require judges to inform those convicted of domestic violence that they have 48 hours to surrender their guns to law enforcement or a licensed gun dealer, and five days to produce written proof that they have done so.
Though the law has no penalty for judges who do not comply, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said merely providing a legal mechanism will be enough.
“They’re not doing it now because it’s an oversight. If the legislature lays out a clear path for them to follow, they’ll follow it,” Frosh said. “Judges follow the law.”
Federal terrorist watch list
Lastly, legislation sponsored in the Senate by James Rosapepe, D-Prince George’s, and in the House by Luke Clippinger, D-Baltimore, would prevent anyone who is on the federal terrorist watch list from buying a gun.
“We’re protecting people in Maryland, and really people across the country, by preventing people on the terror watch list from buying guns,” Clippinger said.
The law is modeled after a similar one in New Jersey, signed by Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican.
Frosh said he didn’t anticipate a constitutional problem with restricting gun ownership for people who may be on the list but haven’t been convicted of a crime.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Larry Hogan said Wednesday afternoon the governor had not seen the bills yet and didn’t know whether they would reach his desk, so he had no comment. She also noted that in a meeting with the governor Tuesday about legislative priorities, Miller did not mention his plans for these bills.
Appeals court reversal on Firearms Act
This announcement came a week after the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a lower court ruling upholding an assault weapon ban that was part of the Maryland Firearm Safety Act in 2013.
The court’s ruling does not overturn the act, instead the case goes back to the U.S. District Court to apply a “strict scrutiny” test on whether the FSA violates the Second Amendment. Frosh said his office will appeal the ruling, and meanwhile, the assault weapon ban is still in effect.
Del. Susan Krebs, a Republican from Carroll County who has supported gun rights in the past, said at first blush, the new legislation seems unnecessary.
“All they want to do is restrict, restrict, restrict, instead of getting to the root of the problem, which not the guns, it’s the people,” she said.
So… Right leaning journalists now loose their gun rights? (i.e. Pete Santilli – placed on terrorist watch list for not publicly reporting the left ideology in-doctrine) I guess when they’re sent to Iraq to report they can just throw their democratic-subsidized gun-free-zone pixie-dust at the offenders and all will be a-ok. Oh, wait, what’s this – a new report shows most mass-shootings are by democrats? What is exactly are they subsidizing in their pixie-dust?
To each legislator proposing gun control – the firearm in and of itself does not kill or injury anyone – the person controlling the weapon makes that decision!! No matter how many gun control laws you or Congress enacts, our criminals on the street will continue to ignore these laws. These proposed laws are only restricting and/or forcing law abiding citizens to give up protecting themselves or face the risk of criminal charges for possessing and carrying a firearm for protection. Let’s address the true problem (the elephant in the room) of mental illness, the lack of a national data base to prohibit the unlawful purchase of a firearm, an inadequate system for the performance of background checks, failure to fully prosecute under present gun laws, inadequate mandatory sentencing for the use of a firearm in a crime, etc. Guns DO NOT Kill, these items are only a tool to carry out the twisted desires of the individual using it to cause death and serious injury. While I’m sure you have heard this before it’s absolutely true – I can also use a knife, drill, saw, hammer, straight razor, carpet knife, pipe, baseball bat, tire iron, etc to inflict the same injuries and obtain the same deadly results – are you proposing to ban these items as well? Please get a clue!!!
Sounds reasonable. Other states should follow their lead. Texas should repeal campus carry, as there are ZERO benefits with high safety risks associated with this irresponsible law. There are safer, more reasonable options to maintain campus security than allowing untrained, immature, armed 21yr old students to carry loaded guns into classrooms and dorms.
“Gun safety laws” is the phrase democrats, liberals, progressives, socialist, or whatever they call themselves today, These are gun control laws. Gun safety is brought in to hide the real intent. And by the way, now they are calling “gun free zones” “gun-free sanctuaries.” I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt but you do know that every mass shooting, by the FBI’s definition, happened in a gun free zone, don’t you? Why did you not present this as part of a balanced article?
According to his son, the killer had shot and injured his wife 20 years ago and the incident wasn’t reported…
How does a stricter gun control law handle that ?
Why not?
The federal courts just found the law you most recently passed completely unconstitutional, why not double-down with a whole bunch more?
What can go wrong?
Actually, they just asked it to be re-evaluated using strict scrutiny.