Just days after the spectacular suffocation of an “assault weapons” ban bill in a Virginia Senate committee, yet another Bloomberg-funded attack on firearm rights has failed, this time in adjoining Maryland.
Yesterday a proposal at the Maryland statehouse to force state registration for a long list of guns that anti-gun politicians have labeled as “assault rifles and pistols” was withdrawn by the House Judiciary Committee in the face of fierce opposition and questions about a registry being unfunded and overwhelming to administer.
Known as House Bill 1261, the measure was set to criminalize the possession of many firearms in wide use in Maryland, stipulating jail terms plus fines as high as $1,000 per firearm for failure to register.
Maryland House Delegate Dan Cox was one of several taking to Twitter to announce the failure of the bill:
HB1261 which would expanded substantially what guns are banned in MD and have forced countless Marylanders to register their firearms or be prosecuted has been withdrawn. YOUR VOICES COUNT!!! Via @DelegateCox #mdga2020 #mdga20 #mdpolitics pic.twitter.com/s47oaHgevf
— Maryland Shall Issue (@MD_Shall_Issue) February 21, 2020
The bill is among a package of gun control measures being pushed by Bloomberg’s Everytown For Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action anti-gun front groups.
The failure of the registration bill comes on the heels of a blistering attack by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, who has admonished Maryland legislators for ignoring his crime bill aimed at reducing crime in the state’s largest and most violent city, Baltimore.
Charm City is plagued with a homicide rate that is ten times the national average. In just the first two months of the 2020, 44 people have died—a 45% increase over the same period last year.
The Republican governor is insisting on mandatory minimum jail terms for gun crimes. Democrats at the statehouse, though, continue to sidestep the proposals despite the alarming body count in Baltimore, claiming they need evidence that mandatory minimums work.
The stalemate is a continuation of decades of failure by a Democrat majority in Annapolis to stem crime in the state’s leading metropolis. Instead, anti-gun legislators have focused on firearm regulations that have yet to make a dent in crime statistics.
In 2013, Democrats enacted a sales ban on pencil-barrel AR-15s, AK-47s and other rifles they deemed “assault weapons”, while grandfathering in rifles in possession prior to the law taking affect.
Despite the pronouncements that the law would “save lives,” the homicide rate in Baltimore remains at or near the top of national statistics.
In the Maryland statehouse, gun control groups are continuing to pressure for more regulations overwhelmingly aimed at penalizing law abiding citizens, such as a bill to criminalize the Free State’s 400-year tradition of private long gun sales and transfers among Marylanders.
Crimes committed with long guns in Maryland have been shown to be only a fraction of those committed with handguns, but gun control measures involving long guns remains the priority for the out-of-state-funded groups pressuring the legislators.
