“A trooper stopped a new Toyota Tundra on Saturday because the driver was using a cellphone while driving,” delmarvanow.com reports. “What Cpl. T. Bean found was a vehicle loaded with more than a dozen guns and a New Hampshire driver prohibited from buying or possessing them in the state of Maryland.” That last bit almost makes it sound like the driver – with 17 guns! – was a prohibited person, generally. This too: “Darren Paul Seik, 29, was taken into Maryland State Police custody and charged with possession of regulated firearms, a rifle and shotguns by a person prohibited, as well as related offenses.” Not a bit of it . . .
The suspect told authorities he was transporting the weapons through Maryland en route to a new residence in Virginia.
I suspect that this was indeed the case. At the risk of profiling, A Live Free or Die resident driving a Toyota Tundra through The Free State (no really) is just the sort of person who wouldn’t think to check Marlyland’s gun laws while traveling to Virginia.
More importantly, what crime was Darren Paul Seik committing – other than transporting firearms? Crickets chirping.
So the man’s life will be ruined because he was operating under the assumption that Maryland respected his natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Or that the Safe Passage provision of the Firearms Owners Protection Act had him covered, even though his guns were not.
This is the result of all gun control laws: they threaten the freedom of otherwise law-abiding Americans. While their supporters say gun laws prevent firearms-related crimes, does that even matter? Once again, as Bruce Krafft points out, gun rights are subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility.
Well they shouldn’t be. Until that’s true across the length and breadth of this great country – and on the island chain of Hawaii – the fight for firearms freedom will never end.