maryland gun control bills
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Reader Steve W. writes:

Greetings from a long-time reader. I want to draw some attention to some of the gun control bills that have been proposed here in Maryland. Often when restrictive gun states are mentioned, my home-state is overlooked in favor of New York or California. Well we have several new bills being introduced and voted on this April in Maryland.

Here’s a brief summary:

SB737/HB786- Maryland already requires a handgun license (HQL) to attempt to buy (not carry) a handgun. This bill would require residents to acquire a long-gun license to buy any long-gun. We would have to get two separate licenses to buy firearms in Maryland.Crazy, expensive, and time-consuming.

HB612- Maryland has always considered heavy-barreled AR-15s to be sporting rifles, not “assault rifles.” After Sandy Hook, Maryland passed an assault weapons ban but did not include HBARs. This new law would ban HBAR rifles from purchase. It would also penalize anyone who bought an HBAR legally after the 2013 ban. Owners would have until October 1 to turn them in or become a criminal.

HB740/SB882- This would criminalize homemade firearms, namely 80% lowers and pistols. It not only criminalizes the act going forward, it bans any gun not made by a firearms manufacturer. Owners would have until October to turn them in, destroy them, or become a criminal.

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63 COMMENTS

    • Well let’s see if they match the noncompliance we saw up here in NY. The manufacturing section I forsee them having a lot of problems with enforcing given MD neighboring states. The license for rifles will suck if it ends up like NYC where you are even screwed in other states

    • “the debate is leave, disobey or comply.”

      Shouldn’t that be “the debate is leave, disobey or find cover”?

      • We have become wussies. Our Founding Fathers did not choose to “leave.” They chose to “disobey AND lock ‘n’ load and assume firing position.” Had our Founding Fathers chose “leave” we would still be subjects of the British King. Our Founding Fathers would already have been finished shooting……a second time.

      • The numbers show they get the stage house and senate in one more, and then using the census numbers they get to redistrict and game over in Virginia.

        And Virginia Democrat legislators were somewhat gun friendly 20 years ago, they are unanimously anti 2A now.

  3. Sad to say I am abandoning my home state (Maryland) due to this. I am tired of giving my tax dollars to these goons. Yes I have fought back on these subjects by going to town halls, writing to my representatives, and voting. Sorry there is a point a good sailor notices there is one to many holes in his boat and it’s going to sink. So take me home to West Virginia. Hopefully the lazy judicial system one day realizes these laws are unconstitutional and put a stop to them.

    • SCOTUS is hearing a few gun cases next term. They’ll be heard fall 2019 with a decision before July 2020. I’d rather ginsburg retire but if she refuses, I hope there are natural forces that remove her from the court and trump gets another pick. If trump gets another pick, we should see a fairly decent pace restoring the 2nd Amendment.

      • “SCOTUS is hearing a few gun cases next term.”

        A few? What else besides the ‘NY Pistol’ transport case?

        • uhm this is a story about Maryland and it the reason why DC has profoundly better 2A rights than Maryland is because of guys in black robes.

          DC is faster and easier to get a handgun for home than Maryland, and for carry DC is also shall issue while maryland is may issue aka “no issue.”

    • “take me home to West Virginia”

      You can go find Vic. He’s good people and I’m pretty sure just moved to WV.

        • Wyoming… West Virginia. I get them confused.

          Really the only differences are the size of the mountains, the commonality of moonshinin’, how much oxy is snorted (not taken overall) and the amount of sister-fuckery that goes on.

          Oh, and the fly fishing is better in Wyoming too.

  6. States should be stopped from doing their own interpretations of the constitutional rights given to it’s citizens.

  7. We would have to get two separate licenses to buy firearms in Maryland. Crazy, expensive, and time-consuming.

    That is the intention!

    Or in the oft repeated saying, “That is a feature, not a bug!”

  8. And watch as thier crime rates go up all the while they do absolutely nothing to stop criminals since these same gun control advocates that want more onerous laws are the same ones that refuse to have the laws enforced against the criminal element.

  9. Don’t look to SCOTUS for help. John “Court before Constitution” Roberts is going to be the Dem’s 5-4 swing vote affirming all the lower court rulings that these are permissible restrictions consistent with the 2A.

  10. All Constitution supporting Marylanders are welcome in Pennsylvania. We need your votes to keep this from happening here. Even if you are a Ravens fan.

  11. The dimwitocrats have not an inkling of knowledge when it comes to rifles , pistols , can’t tell a weapon of war , from a sporting rifle. Yet they seem to pull these bills out of their asses regularly. I get it . they want law abiding citizens under their controll , we are not their subjects , they are our hired servants. I say if they can not abide by the oath they took to uphold our constitution , why should we comply with their unconstitutional rules . what will they attack next , they’ve already hit the second Amendment , they’re trying to prevent our freedom of speech. When is enough , enough ? I don’t have much , but what I bought with my hard earned dollars belongs to me , I am getting too old and tired to live like some Joe blow leftist tyrant orders me to.

  13. Keeping up with New Jersey, New York, and California, you mean.
    I know it’s easy to forget us New Jerseyites, but our Governor Murphy is doing his best to stay ahead of New York and California in the competition for stupidest gun-control laws in the nation.

    Whenever a gun-control law is at its most ridiculously stupid, politicians in these three states always try to disguise its stupidity by calling it “common sense” gun control, as in, “It’s just common sense that the shape of its plastic grip turns an innocent hunting rifle into a baby-killing assaulty fully-semi-automatic military-grade thingamajiggger that can fire 30 round clipazine calibers per second per second of 0.9 mm armor-piercing heat-seeking hollow-point incendiary cop-killing tracer bullets!”

  14. These propositions are even more onerous than the restrictions in California. Here, if you had a bullet button AR, you had to register it as an assault weapon by July 1, 2018, but at least you got to keep it. Or you could (and can) buy “featureless” rifles or “mag locked” rifles that comply with the current law and are not considered “assault weapons.” [A registered assault weapon can be transported only between your home and a range or gun smith, and cannot be transferred in state, whether by sale, gift, or bequest.]

    Further, we CAN build 80% firearms, but one has to apply for a unique serial number from the state (with a background check) and engrave that number on the receiver before starting the build.

    • Our handgun roster is what has me the most PO’d since I’m more of a pistol guy.
      Ammogedeon is a PITA as well, but at least folks can get a COE and 03FFL if they want to buy ammo online. One of my buddies did this.

  15. ” Here, if you had a bullet button AR, you had to register it as an assault weapon by July 1, 2018, but at least you got to keep it. ”

    The whole point of registering it is because they don’t intend to let you keep it for very long.

    • Yep.

      We’ve been saying for a long time that the “evil” cosmetic features of AR’s make no difference and all self-loading (i.e. semiautomatic) rifles are fundamentally the same.

      Well, they finally got the message…so now their new laws, as seen in WA and FL, are going after ALL semiautos.

      • Part of me figures that this is due to the Congressional Baseball shooting.

        Before that Dems, generally, had no idea what an SKS was because it wasn’t an AR or AK.

        • “Part of me figures that this is due to the Congressional Baseball shooting.”

          They really didn’t care about that, because Republicans got shot by a ‘Bernie Bro’.

          I think the real impetus is the upcoming ‘NY Pistol’ SCOTUS case. They fear something worse (for them) than the ‘Heller – McDonald’ decision is coming, so they want to throw as much against the wall as they possibly can, and hope some of it will ‘stick’….

        • I’m not saying they cared. I’m saying they discovered that not every semi-auto rifle is an AK or AR.

          You’ll note that the serious move to make “all semiautomatic rifles with the capability to accept a detachable magazine”, including rifles like the 10/22, into “assault weapons” happened after that shooting. Coincidence? I think not.

          And yes, for some nay-sayer out there, while the standard SKS outfit is a 10 round integral box mag the mag can be removed and replaced with “high capacity” detachable mags.

  16. I’m going to contact LWRCI and try to get their position on this. Maybe they could do a Magpul and move ops to a friendlier state and choke off some of MD’s tax base. For some reason, I think they are too invested and too close to DC crowd, but I would enjoy being very wrong.

    Anybody else want to help…even if you don’t have any of their rifles?

    • “Revolution time.”

      Soon.

      (Cue ‘The Evil Laugh’…)

      • I’m sitting here all dressed up with no place to go, like a school girl on a Friday night, waiting for an invite to the party. As soon as the leftists announce the date and location, I’ll put on my shoes and be out the door.

  18. Maryland should split into east/west.
    The eastern shore is 100% republican but lacks the population despite having more land.
    These are 2 different worlds!

    • Please do not lump Western MD. ( Wash. Allegheny, Garrett counties) in with the Demonrats in central MD. Far fewer counties with a few large urban areas many populated by a large amount of Government workers.

      • And here again is another state that should be split. Eastern MD should join VA; they are both part of the eastern shore. Western MD should join PA (or VA). I could say WV but I doubt the people in western MD would want that. MD would revert to being Baltimore and the DC suburbs. More rural Republicans would be a great benefit to VA or PA. It’s a shame. I lived for a while in the exurbs of Baltimore. Nice countryside. Didn’t own a gun at the time so the gun laws did not matter, but taxes and politics were another story. Just horrible.

        • Eastern Shore becomes part of Delaware – geographically contiguous and DE needs the land and people. DE becomes a big vacation spot.

          From the Chesapeake West to Baltimore City and County and Montgomery County southward join with DC and Northern Virginia down to Fredericksburg to become Columbia.

          West and North of Baltimore (Cecil / Harford) joins with Western Pennsylvania, Western Maryland and Western Virginia , possibly all of West Virginia and Southwest Virginia to become Allegheny or something similar. Philadelphia joins with New Jersey and New York to become New Pitstain.

          Oh, and by the way, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals which somehow covers almost the entire Western part of the US, more than 60 million people or 20% of the entire population of the US, needs to be split into several courts: one just for CA, and several others for like-minded states (assuming the Eastern and Western parts of Oregon, Washington and parts of CA want to split off to join their like-minded family).

          People with similar lives, concerns and focus should be united by common bonds. It is awful to see cities imposing their will on fellow citizens through sheer massed numbers, the very “tyranny of the masses” so long warned against.

          Communists, on the other hand, should stick to their enclaves and legislate each other to death. Give them their space and let them do what they want to each other.

          Let the rest of America live free and grow strong.

  19. I sympathize with firearms advocates, owners and users in east and west coastal states. But you can always come to Texas if you get pissed off about it.

    Down here you can carry just about anything (firearm, machete, bayonet, spear, mace, etc.) openly.

    Get real. Move here. We have lots of land along with lots of hard-headed Germans and Poles who ain’t gonna put up with that sh*t.

  20. Illinois is in the race big time also. Use the link to view over 60 proposed gun control bills in Illinois. We do not want to be California or New York, but it does not look good for us in Illinois. Stay strong Maryland.
    https://www.isra.org/Advocacy/Legislation.aspx
    SB107 (Semi auto Ban) https://trackbill.com/bill/illinois-senate-bill-107-crim-cd-assault-weapon-ban/1648626
    HB3553 (Prevents Counties from becoming a Firearms Sanctuary) https://trackbill.com/bill/illinois-house-bill-3553-muni-county-regulate-firearm/1692383
    HB3104 (Mandatory fingerprinting of all FOID card holders) https://trackbill.com/bill/illinois-house-bill-3104-firearms-fingerprinting/1691031
    HB2253 (80% rifle lowers and pistols ban) https://trackbill.com/bill/illinois-house-bill-2253-untraceable-firearms/1679464
    HB1586 (California style serialization of ammunition for pistols) https://trackbill.com/bill/illinois-house-bill-1586-crim-cd-handgun-ammo-serialize/1661394
    HB888 ( New York style social media accounts overview) https://trackbill.com/bill/illinois-house-bill-888-foid-social-media-accounts/1650799

    • California doesn’t have a serialization law, but a law that requires a semiauto pistol to stamp the case with a unique identifier (the same for all cases, obviously) when the gun is fired. The idiotic Illinois proposal (which has been around before) would require each and every cartridge to be stamped with a separate serial number. Presumably the ammo dealer would have to record the serial numbers for each box of ammo sold. The legislator proposing it is either entirely stupid, given the billions of rounds manufactured each year, or is intending to ban all guns by banning all ammo. The only escape would be to revert to cap and ball pistols or bows and arrows.

      What Illinois should do instead is build more jails if they REALLY want to reduce “gun violence.”

      California is going to try a different approach to a back door ban this year by banning all tabletop FFLS and imposing onerous and very expensive video recording and storage requirements on all brick and mortar stores, forcing all the small stores out of business, just as San Francisco did with the only gun shop in town.

  21. Illinois is in the race biggest gun control state also. Use the link to view over 60 proposed gun control bills in Illinois. Here are a few to get you blood boiling. We do not want to be California or New York, but it does not look good for us in Illinois. Stay strong Maryland. https://www.isra.org/Advocacy/Legislation.aspx
    SB107 (Semi auto Ban) https://trackbill.com/bill/illinois-senate-bill-107-crim-cd-assault-weapon-ban/1648626
    HB3553 (Prevents Counties from becoming a Firearms Sanctuary) https://trackbill.com/bill/illinois-house-bill-3553-muni-county-regulate-firearm/1692383
    HB3104 (Mandatory fingerprinting of all FOID card holders) https://trackbill.com/bill/illinois-house-bill-3104-firearms-fingerprinting/1691031
    HB2253 (80% rifle lowers and pistols ban) https://trackbill.com/bill/illinois-house-bill-2253-untraceable-firearms/1679464
    HB1586 (California style serialization of ammunition for pistols) https://trackbill.com/bill/illinois-house-bill-1586-crim-cd-handgun-ammo-serialize/1661394
    HB888 ( New York style social media accounts overview) https://trackbill.com/bill/illinois-house-bill-888-foid-social-media-accounts/1650799

  23. “I had the master plan, I’m in the caravan on my way to Maryland
    With my man Two-TECs to take over this projects
    They call him Two-TECs, he tote two TECs
    And when he start to bust, he like to ask, “Who’s next?””

    Sounds like Baltimore. Hasn’t changed much in 25 years.

    • I did not know that Illinois lawmakers filed 125 new gun bills until I read the article from the link above. I thought it was closer to 80.

    • Considering the number of sanctuary counties and states that are defying federal law, I have to wonder how the State expects it could enforce such a law.

      • You can add ten counties in Colorado to the list of 2A “sanctuary” counties.

        Custer, Freemont, Kiowa, Moffat, Montezuma, Otero, Rio Blanco, and Weld Counties all declared earlier this month. Prower and El Paso County just joined last night.

  26. In related news, you will henceforth be required to purchase a license to read before being allowed to purchase a newspaper in Maryland…

  27. Sad to say that if you want to be liberated from the Horrors of liberal gun laws at the state laws, Our only hope is the fed supreme court actually enforcing the constitution.

    We’re too far down the rat hole for anything else.

    • I’m only a tad less pessimistic.

      The Democrats are being pulled so far left by the Lipstick Lenin and her bolshevik cronies that Bernie Sanders is starting to look like a moderate. This could have some serious backlash for Democrats.

      I think what they are selling is a bit too much for the general electorate. Sure, all the free stuff sounds nice, but there is a lot of real looney-tune crap in there too, like the Green New Deal. One thing the voters will not vote for is uncertainty, and right now the Democrats are dishing that out by the truckload. And it doesn’t help their cause that nutballs like Elizabeth Warren are launching full frontal assaults on the tech sector– a huge, huge source of Demo funding.

      Granted, they might dial it back in the next year, but if we go into late summer of 2020 and they are still pushing this crap, I think they might just take a big hit. Not only would they not dislodge Trump, but they could very likely lose the House and give the GOP a 60-vote edge. They could very well take a big hit at the state level as well– there some rumblings out of NY and CA that the Demos are not making important people very happy.

      But– this is all still a year-and-a-half away. The political landscape can change tectonically overnight, so what I’m saying is probably more wishful thinking than a hard and fast prediction. But if the Democrats are as split up, confused and disorganized in a year as they are now, we might just see them totally implode. Stay tuned.

  28. Gotta say I am glad I moved from MD. here you pay your app fee and take A 6 hour class and as long as you are not A felon you WILL get A concealed carry permit no “reasonable and substantial” reason needed. AR-15 no problem 30 round mag pshhh and no regulation you can modify it all you want (as long as you don’t make it a full auto) long guns require no permits, hand guns do require A purchase permit (5 bucks) unless you have A ccw then you can walk in and walk out with what ever gun you want. OH and the best part……. N.C is a stand your ground and A castle doctrine state. MD/PA/IL/NY/NJ All suck! personally I do not understand why anyone would want to live there. Cold ass winters/Stupidly high property tax/and gun control=Liberal’s paradise.

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