Civil Disobedience

[Shug]

Thought you guys might be interested in this story, even if it is in a small, otherwise irrelevant state. A local group promising civil disobedience to new firearms laws being considered in our General Assembly this year. Several county sheriffs are supporting it.

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/maryland/maryland-authorities-could-face-open-defiance-if-new-gun-laws-pass-including-from-one-of-their-own/65-18b7f49e-8e87-4c9f-be08-94e8120de92a

[Punch The Clown]

Shug, the govt has us by the short hairs. If you have a job, possessions, property, money you are screwed. Go against the govt and you'll lose everything. The have nots are the ones with the real power.

[timshufflin]

A person who has the pair he was born with.

[dblas]

Thought you guys might be interested in this story, even if it is in a small, otherwise irrelevant state. A local group promising civil disobedience to new firearms laws being considered in our General Assembly this year. Several county sheriffs are supporting it.

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/maryland/maryland-authorities-could-face-open-defiance-if-new-gun-laws-pass-including-from-one-of-their-own/65-18b7f49e-8e87-4c9f-be08-94e8120de92a

Thanks for sharing this, those of us here in Maryland do not think we are small not irrelevant. If we don't fight this fight here, then it will come to other states, in the form of red states going purple and purple states moving to blue.

[Shug]

Just wanted to follow up now that the legislative session is closed:

All but one of a slew of anti-gun bills was defeated, and that one, which abolishes civilian oversight of the State Police issuance of handgun carry permits, may end up being vetoed by the Governor.

These are the bills we were up against:
1. Ban on possession of all AR-15s in the state not possessed as of 1 Oct, 2013, including HBAR versions purchased after 2013 under an exception in the prior law.
2. Criminalizing loaning long guns for hunting, use on a range, or other purposes without going through a full NICS check through an FFL.
3. Criminalization of all private sales of rifles and shotguns. All transfers would have been through an FFL. Bill as written contained no exception for antiques, which you can't run a NICS check on, so that would have been a defacto ban on transfers of antique cartridge rifles and shotguns. Penalty would have been 5 years in prison per sale or transfer, longer than the penalty for stealing a firearm.
4. Ban on possession of any firearm made by a non-FFL07 that was manufactured using a "computer-assisted device", i.e. CNC or additive manufacturing.

There were several others that I've forgotten about. But all were defeated through the combined efforts of gun owners contacting their representatives repeatedly and providing testimony to committees, and media/public information campaigns from several grassroots, state-level groups. That group in the link in my first post actually arranged for an airplane to tow a banner with their slogan and a message to the Governor on it over the capitol during the final day of the legislative session. See: https://www.capitalgazette.com/news/general_assembly/ac-cn-wont-comply-20190408-story.html

It also didn't hurt that several of the lead antis engaged in some highly visible, really self-defeating behaviors during the legislative session.

Maryland is politically dominated by a small number of extremely liberal urban counties with Democrat supermajorities in both chambers of our legislature due to left-wing gerrymandering so bad it's drawn SCOTUS' attention. Its proximity to DC makes it a policy testing ground for the national parties, and hopefully these losses for the antis will make their national-level politician allies of convenience reconsider depending on prevention of private gun ownership as a major policy thrust. Killing these bills was a huge, surprise victory for supporters of the Bill of Rights and the concept of a constitutional republic.

[Punch The Clown]

Shug, I'm shocked that maryland failed to pass any new gun laws, as liberal as the state became. I lived there for a short time in the 1960's. I lived on Georgia Ave before the subway and before it was widened and anything past our house was farmland. I used to take the bus up to new york from a station near the Glenmont shopping center. It was Trailways or Grayhound-I don't recall. What I do remember is that it looked like a scene from In The Heat Of The Night. One clerk and a fan. A lot has changed there in 50+ years.