All Of Maryland Laws

Didn't stop another senseless shooting.

But for some reason, the rocket scientists at the Washignton Post can't seem to figure that out.

AT A DAY-CARE center in Germantown, an 8-year-old boy shot a 7-year-old girl with a handgun yesterday, hitting her in the arm but not killing her. The boy, whose father is a convicted felon with a long rap sheet, had bragged that he had access to guns. But why is it that after years of similar incidents and anguish and debate, the country has yet to enact laws to prevent such tragedies?

Perhaps cause when you have no regard for the law, the law has no impact on your actions.

Lets just look at how many laws were broken in this first ridiculous paragraph. I'll let others fisk the rest of the Post's clueless editorial.

1. The father is a convicted felon. He can't own or possess a firearm. Apparently, being a convicted felon with a long rap sheet (which begs the question, why was he not an incarcerated felon) he obviously has no regard for the law. Hence, he owns guns illegally.
2. His 8 year old son apparently never received any training in proper gun safety. That’s not quite violating a law, but we know how the anti gun bigots in Maryland feel about the evil right wing kooks at the NRA. Too bad the NRA also has a much longer and more accomplished legacy of providing firearms training and safety instructions than protection our civil rights, cause I bet you dollars to donuts that the bigots in Germantown wouldn't let Eddie Eagle visit the school.
3. His 8 year old son also was too young to possess a handgun. Ooops, another law violated. Not really the kids fault, lets blame that on dad (who we already know has zero regard for the law). Its probably not too big of an assumption to presume his mother has a similar regard for the law.
4. You can't carry a handgun in Maryland without a license (which, as we all know, the gun banning bigots won't allow to be issued). Yep, simply carrying it from the home violated another law.
5. Can't carry a gun onto school grounds. Yep, that’s one more.
6. Ahh, what do you know, it seems its illegal to shoot someone. Geese, Louise. Another law violated.

Of course, when a "convicted felon with a long rap sheet" is involved, do we really think additional laws are going to make one iota of difference?


Heck, I'll continue.

In the late 1990s, then-Gov. Parris N. Glendening's task force on gun violence in Maryland pushed for tougher rules mandating safety devices on handguns.

Oh, you mean that corrupt and lying former Governor. The one who's veracity was on par with Slick Willie's? Yeah, we can believe anything his politically motivated "task force on gun violence" concluded? Who was on the task force? I don't know, but I bet there weren't a lot of folks who actually knew much about the basic operations of a firearm. And, do you really think that even if "safety devices on handguns" were mandated, that a "convicted felon with a long rap sheet" who was willing accomplice to at least 5 violations of the law - including shooting someone - would comply with that one?

In the following years, the state adopted a number of laws -- stronger than most in the nation -- including a requirement that handguns sold in Maryland be equipped with a childproof locking device, and another forbidding people from leaving loaded firearms within reach of unsupervised children.

Well, I guess we have the answer. Make that at least 6 violations. I don't think the "convicted felon with a long rap sheet" broke a law by not having a trigger lock on the gun, but he certainly broke the law that forbid allowing his kid access to a loaded firearm.

But other regulations -- potentially more effective ones in preventing accidents such as yesterday's -- went nowhere. Most notable was a proposal that guns be "personalized" by incorporating technology restricting a gun's use to its owner, for instance by using fingerprint recognition. In a study published in 2003, researchers led by Jon S. Vernick of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health examined 117 unintentional homicide deaths in Maryland from 1991 to 1998, four-fifths of them involving handguns. The conclusion: 37 percent of the deaths could have been prevented by a "personalized" gun.

Personalized. Yep. Smart gun technology. Apparantly, especially if this was the brainchild of the Task Force, my initial impressions were correct. There were simply no members of the task force with even a passing knowledge of how firearms actually operate.

I don't have Jon Vernick's study - and in fact I am not familiar with it at all - but I find ludicrous that it actually found 37 percent of deaths could have been prevented (He is about as partisan and crazed a gun banning bigot as your likely to find).

I do have a better suggstion though, one that will prevent 100% of deaths. The simple, basic, four rules of firearms safety.


1. Treat All Firearms As Loaded
2. Never let the muzzle of a firearm point at anything you are not willing to destroy
3. Keep your finger off the trigger unless your sights are on the target
4. Be sure of your target and what is behind it

100% effective, but don't expect the Post to publish that anytime soon.