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“It’s crazy that Maryland doesn’t have (reciprocity). My Virginia permit reciprocates to Pennsylvania, but when I drive up Interstate 81, even for just those seven miles, I could be arrested if I don’t pull over my car and secure and unload my firearm first.” – Thomas Hood in Bill to ban guns on college campuses approved in Md. house [at washingtonpost.com]

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55 COMMENTS

  1. During the civil war Maryland had to be occupied by federal troops because of Marylands support of the southern cause.

    All these years later and they’re still on the wrong side of the civil rights issue.

    • Except that the infringement of rights of slaves were not in jeopardy at the beginning of the civil war. In fact, the general government had stood firmly with slave holders and Lincoln himself didn’t care if slavery continued or ended as long as he didn’t have to interact with free blacks. The only reason the emancipation proclamation was delivered was to undermine the seceding states, note that slave states that had not seceded were not effected.

      • In his inaugural address, Lincoln supported the Corwin Amendment. It was a pro-slavery amendment sponsored by Thomas Corwin and William Seward, both northern Republicans who would hold positions in the Lincoln administration.

        And yeah, Lincoln was a massive racist.

        • …because Lincoln’s racism makes him look worse than the states who seceded in defense of slavery?

    • What’s interesting about the example you cite is that Lincoln used those federal troops to suspend the writ of habeas corpus.

      • Lincoln may well be guilty of all those things. But who is remembered as a great man and who are remembered as slave owners and rights violaters?

        Slavery was such a massive wrong that any wrongs Lincoln may have committed in ending it were acceptable. Had he hanged every former slave owner and confederate politician I doubt he would be remembered as anything but a great man.

        And now we have revisionist trying to defend the slave states. Life is too damn easy these days.

        • I’m not sure who you are referring to by “revisionist trying to defend slave states” but my point was to show that Lincoln’s actions did put him on the wrong side of an important civil rights issue, at least according to the Supreme Court. But all of that is moot: he wasn’t fighting the South to end slavery per se. His Emancipation Proclamation, as others have pointed out, was a military policy. He is respected and admired because he was magnanimous in victory.

  2. Police serve themselves and protect their pensions. Any chance they can fleece 3 grand and a gun from a law abider they will. I mean why get in a thug match with a criminal when fining citizens is safer and more productive.

    • “why get in a thug match with a criminal when fining citizens is safer and more profitable.”
      There. Fixed it for you.

      • Is it bad I had to read his post three times, finally comparing word to word, to catch what you had changed?

  3. just did the I81 shuffle yesterday. and yup….pulled over and secured at the border. a right pain.

        • You don’t need to do that, you can CC in IL in your vehicle if you have a CCW from any state. Just MUST NOT leave the vehicle with it.

          (e) Nothing in this Act shall prohibit a non-resident from
          transporting a concealed firearm within his or her vehicle in
          Illinois, if the concealed firearm remains within his or her vehicle and the non-resident:
          (1) is not prohibited from owning or possessing a
          firearm under federal law;
          (2) is eligible to carry a firearm in public under the
          laws of his or her state or territory of residence; and
          (3) is not in possession of a license under this Act.
          If the non-resident leaves his or her vehicle unattended,
          he or she shall store the firearm within a locked vehicle or
          locked container within the vehicle in accordance with
          subsection (b) of Section 65 of this Act.

        • SC allows anyone to have a loaded firearm in their vehicle. Just must be in a console/glove box. No permit needed.

          There are also a few bills in commitee to expand reciprocity (or go full Constitutional Carry). Fingers crossed…

  5. Just left that craphole and moved back to the US of A. Never been happier. Got my CCW back and can pretty my carry where I want, when I want. But yeah, I go down there on a occasion. For the longest time, I stopped carrying when I knew I was going to be down there. But then I decided I wasn’t letting the idiots in MD violate my 2A rights in PA anymore, so I stop at the border, do that “shuffle”, and then re-arm after I cross back into the US of A.

    The MD legislature, just like that idiot O’Malley, apparently never took a look at what goes on in downtown Charm City in judging the effectiveness of their strict gun laws. Of course, I don’t know how you could’ve missed the issues during the Freddie Gray riots… err… “protest.”

    My ex, who had always relied on my handguns for self-protection in the house, is still waiting for her MD HQL so she can get her own. The day I got my PA DL, I went down to the gun shop and bought another gun, just because I frickin’ could. She couldn’t believe it. I told her that’s why we always spent our 2A dollars in PA and not MD when I lived there.

    Screw Maryland.

  6. Even more sinisterly, imagine a student on a college campus. If I step on the grass that is owned by the university I am a criminal punishable by felony charges, but if I stay on my side of the sidewalk I am a completely legal gun owning citizen.

    Also, go to harpers ferry. Thats a joke. Stay on the VA side and you are fine but if you go over that bridge…

    • FOPA applies to unloaded firearms. I can carry concealed now all the way from PA to FL, except for the seven mile stretch of I-81 through MD that I have to stop, unload, lock up the gun separate from ammo and out of reach. That’s what this guy is talking about.

      • Ah Yes… The situation is clearer now, thanks bro.

        I suppose If I had a small stretch of highway like that, I might consider the act of pulling over to unload/load to be overly conspicuous, especially if I did it regularly. I might be more inclined to just drive on and ignore the problem, and try to stay out of trouble. There are risks for sure, and everyone has to decide how to balance risks for themselves I guess.

        • And therein, I suppose, lies the rub. A law-abiding citizen shouldn’t have to make that choice given that they are not a threat to LEOs (or the public), and the criminals who are a threat certainly don’t care about the risks of “illegal carry” through MD.

          It really shouldn’t be that difficult for a legislature, presuming they are really interested in expanding freedom (cough, cough!), to understand that and eliminate the risk of criminal charges for the rest of us just trying to go about our daily lives. But it is Maryland.

        • All MD has to do is park a state trooper a mile in from the state line and wait. If they’re lucky, they’ll catch a few “gun felons” and lock up a few innocent people for a tidy sum. If not, they’ll at least get a decent chunk of money in moving violations from all the out of state drivers they’ll pull over.

        • The last time I made that trip I had to do the shuffle through South Carolina also, but I thought I had heard of recent changes allowing reciprocity. I can’t seem to find anything about it now so you are probably right. Sigh.

        • Keep the gun in your console/glove box (doesn’t need to lock) and you’re legal in SC.

      • There was as story of a family in their family minivan traveling from Florida to points north of Maryland. I don’t recall the details any more, but after crossing the border (through a tunnel?) they were followed by some kind of police officer and eventually pulled over for “speeding”. The driver (Dad) had a Florida carry permit, but he had left his gun at home. After running the license, the trooper came back to the car and demanded to know where the gun was (indicating that he had some kind of access to the Fla. ccw database). Because wife thought it was in the glove box (and said so), this lead to a long drawn out search of the van to find the “missing” weapon. Is there any doubt that there would have been an arrest if a gun had been found? Obviously not.

  8. “Del. Luke H. Clippinger (D-Baltimore), who sponsored the bill, said gun owners should trust prosecutors and police to use discretion in such situations.”

    I see some people have regressed back to the Reconstruction Era.

    • What is the benefit to an individual citizen in trusting police and prosecutors with discretion over their rights and freedom?

      • Exactly. The woman from PA that got caught in NJ last year sure as hell couldn’t trust prosecutorial discretion.

        • That’s usually my Statist BS test question… “What is the benefit to the individual?”

          When the answer involves collectivism, social utility, safety, feelings, the greater good, society, culture, etc., then I can pretty much assume Statism is afoot.

          Also, another good one is “the vast majority.” That phrase is a manipulation tactic used in an attempt to make the opposition feel as if the whole world is automatically against them. It’s never backed up data or numbers, only the idea that “it is so because I say so.”

    • Prosecutorial and police discretion? Piss on that. The law establishes the rules, up front. Discretion means making it up as we go along.

      Would Maryland be OK with me showing up at one of their casinos and exercising gambler’s discretion? I’m showing 20? Hit me! Oh no, a ten! That’s OK, my gambler’s discretion makes that Blackjack. And, oh yeah, I want to go back and increase my bet to a million dollars. Who has my check?

      That’s the rigged game Maryland wants gunowners to play, only the deck is stacked, the dice are loaded, and your prize is prison.

    • I say this with almost a decade of experience as a public defender (so I will admit I am biased), but a citizen never wants to leave the possibility of criminal charges up to the discretion of a cop (or a prosecutor).

    • That’s funny. Because trusting government is the philosophical underpinning of the Bill of Rights. Why doesn’t the good Delegate extend the same trust to citizens to use discretion to responsibly exercise their Constitutional rights?

    • “Del. Luke H. Clippinger (D-Baltimore), who sponsored the bill, said gun owners should trust prosecutors and police to use discretion in such situations.”

      Isn’t that special. Citizens are supposed to trust government but government doesn’t trust the citizens.

      Have you ever noticed that the most ‘progressive’ states have the least trust for their lowly citizenry?

  9. Regarding out-of-state license holders, just driving through MD, whose carry licenses aren’t recognized by Maryland:

    “Del. Luke H. Clippinger (D-Baltimore), who sponsored the bill, said gun owners should trust prosecutors and police to use discretion in such situations.”

    Yeah, no, I wouldn’t play that game. The law estabishes the rules of the game. I understand that not every scenario that can be imagined can be written into law, but the vast majority of scenarios that typically play out day-to-day can be. And they are, like firearm carry license recognition.

    Prosecutorial and police discretion exists for the purpose of getting around a legal technicality never envisioned by the legislature, one that would be a gross misapplication of the letter of the law. Well.

    Prosecution under Maryland’s draconian laws and nonexistent license reciprocity, while abhorrent and unconstitutional, are not mere random acts of state-sanctioned violence. They’re fully in compliance with both the letter and spirit of the law. Maryland WANTS to hammer any and all gunowners, always and everywhere, for myriad and menacing reasons. Statists gotta state and all that.

    “Trust prosecutorial discretion…..”, said the spider to the fly.

    • This. Why play games with a government with a history of civil rights abuses? Maryland is no friend of gun owners (at this point in time) I don’t see how we as responsible citizens are supposed to undertake the onus of burden to trust our lives to the discretion of politicians passing and enforcing legislation specifically targeting us.

    • Remember MD is the state that is looking at plates and stopping people who hold CCWs from out of state, specifically looking to catch people. That is to say they appear to have cameras alerting cops proactively based on shared CCW holder data from other states. Big brother welcomes you to MD.

      That goes way beyond ‘unconstitutional laws’ in my opinion.

      I will never go into that state unless I cannot avoid it.

      http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2014/01/matt-in-fl/florida-gun-owner-welcome-maryland/

  10. Just take your time pulling over. Slow down, but don’t stop, until you’ve crossed the border. 🙂

    • That might just be crazy enough to work. Either you’ll slip out of state unmolested, or you’ll provoke an interstate hot pursuit.
      Something will happen. You’ll shake it up.

  11. My Virginia permit reciprocates to Pennsylvania, but when I drive up Interstate 81, even for just those seven miles, I could be arrested if I don’t pull over my car and secure and unload my firearm first.”
    Not a bug, but a feature.

  12. RE: Illinois. Good luck with that plan of driving through the Land O’ Lincoln with your outa’ state gat on your hip. Most state bulls are only dimly aware of the “law”. But at least I can CC in Indiana with the Illinois holy writ…

  14. I am moving next week from Virginia to Arizona. I do not even trust the “discretion” of the state police in Maryland and Illinois to pack my firearms in the trunk of my car. Reason: I’m planning to pull down the back seats to accommodate some of the items I am traveling with. With the back seats down, an officer could argue that the trunk is “accessible” to the passenger compartment. Not worth the potential hassle if I encounter a over zealous trooper. Will ship them instead.

    • Being from MD and currently living in AZ, I’m a bit confused. At what point between VA and AZ do you go through MD or IL? Both of those states are north of VA and AZ is south.

      • Vhyrus — I’m stopping at my in-laws in Bloomington IN on the way. That puts me through a lot of MD to get to Bloomington IN and then via Illinois to get to AZ. Yeah, I could circumnavigate but it adds a lot of hours on the road.

  15. Not exactly the same issue but definitely related is contractor work or (like me) working in a business that requires you to move periodically. My CO permit was only valid as a resident of CO. When I move to Florida my CO permit is cancelled (mandatory change of address and CO does not issue non-resident permits) and I have to change my Florida permit to a resident permit. Move back to CO and I have to change my Florida permit back to non-resident, but since CO does not recognize non-resident permits I have to start over with my CO permit even though it would not have expired during the time my residence had changed.

    I end up having to pay multiple hundreds of dollars every couple years or else I am a criminal, even though I have already been vetted by the standards of both jurisdictions. Feels an awful lot like infringement to me.

  16. MD is up there with NJ and HI in being the worst for gun owners. At least in rural parts of NY and CA you can get a permit.

  17. I left Maryland 30 years ago and will never go back.
    State Motto: “Screwing the Taxpayer since the 1600s”

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