"Maryland Assault Weapons Ban of 2010"

[Janq]

Montgomery County and and Prince Georges County _used_ to be mainly rural into the 60s and early 70s.

Then came through the 70s and 80s suburbanization and commercialization BIG TIME!!!
While Prince Georges County inside of one decade experienced major what used to be termed 'White Flight' and flip flopped in every way from being a rural and light suburban area as from I'll say approx. '76 through roughly the late '80s.
I was then amazed and frankly still am. It's like a light witch was turned off. PG is now majority minority and it was all kinds of NOT that way when I was being taken over the state line into PG for elementary school. I was moved to MoCo in 7th grade and finished up the rest of my time there. Total I attended eleven different schools as from 1st grade to senior year graduation across PG and Montgomery countys.

Western MD counties have always been minor because they have traditionally always had low population density relative to acreage. Same for the Eastern shore. There just aren't a lot of people there and their power base has always been pretty much zilch among legislature aside from specific industry of farming and waterways based agriculture.

It doesn't help that between Baltimore City being corrupt as the Devil's Daughter has always had major influence in legislature feeding people from it direct to the statehouse. Baltimore County in which it resides pretty much is politically forced to go with what ever the block heads in Baltimore advise/tell them to do, like or get behind.

Then there is Rockville in Montgomery County.
The states second largest city, now (!), which still stuns me as it used to be smaller in population than Silver Spring as when I was at Richard Montgomery HS back in the mid 80s....As it was going through _MAJOR_ real estate expansion and with that urbanization.
Rockville now as a power base reigns supreme for the state ahead of Baltimore (city) even as it is smaller. And guess who all lives in and flocks to Montgomery county and Rockville in specific?
Wealthy whites and overall democratically oriented everybody.

This is nearly same as I also witnessed and lived through for personal profit and advancement through the 90s with what is now called 'Northern VA' (NoVA). A term that always cracks me up as before roughly '92 nobody native used that term aside from those at Northern VA Community College.
V was just another rural state where they grew corn, tobacco and had thousands of acres of commercial sod farms. And Tysons Corner which then was nothing more than a mall with it's own off ramp exit as along with Potomac Mills Mall further south.
Inside of a decade that too all changed and VA politically is a battle much like MD, even so to a point that during the salad =days some folks among NoVA seriously were floating the idea of separating the state into two parts north from south akin to the Dakotas and Carolinas! That was then featured in the Washington Post but nothing came of it.

Interestingly tome though VA has much better political balance among it's people while with MD it is and has been fro two going on three generations now been largely dominated by one party and general mindset.

The odds of me ever moving back 'home' to DC or MD (I did not like NoVA...Though it made me much coin to be invested there!) are now today close to zero. Sad.
At this stage MD might as well be MA to my eye as how things are, and I _HATE_ being in MA now.

- Janq

[Janq]

As reported by the Examiner:

Defeat of Maryland semi-auto ban shows power of grassroots

February 18, 9:25 AM
St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner
Kurt Hofmann

A couple weeks ago, Maryland state Senator Michael Lenett (D) introduced a bill to ban so called "assault weapons"--common, semi-automatic, detachable magazine fed rifles, in other words. Maryland's gun laws are already horribly restrictive, but SB 516 would have made them dramatically worse.

Gratifyingly, though, Maryland residents are apparently mad as (heck), and aren't going to take it anymore, and they mustered enough grassroots pressure to have the bill withdrawn.

We know from first hand knowledge that the incredible pressure, to the tune of several hundred emails and calls a day, brought to bear upon the sponsor of this bill was responsible for the sponsor pulling it.

Old fashioned grassroots activism. That's what gun rights advocates have, and what the forcible citizen disarmament lobby can't figure out how to buy.

What works in Maryland (ranked by the Brady Campaign as the state with the 5th most draconian gun laws) can work anywhere else. In MIssouri, for example, while there does not seem to be much in the pipeline for gun rights advocates to have to mobilize against (like an "assault weapon" ban), there are several bills that deserve (and need) gun owners's support. Just a few:

HB 1230--the Missouri Firearms Freedom Act. As discussed here, the Missouri Firearms Freedom Act would demand that the federal government obey the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, and respect Missouri's state sovereignty regarding firearms (and ammunition and accessories) made in Missouri, for use in Missouri.

HB 1669--concealed carry reform. While I make little secret of my disdain for the concept of licensing the bearing of arms, as long as we allow ourselves to be stuck with licensing, anything that makes the process less onerous is an improvement, and extending the time for which a license is valid (from 3 years to 5), and lowering the age of eligibility from 23 to 21 are both good reforms.

HB 2150--firearms law preemption. Bars local governments from putting into place laws more restrictive than the state's. All Missouri gun owners should get behind this.

HB 1506--another Missouri Firearms Freedom Act. Similar, if not identical, to HB 1230.

Call your state legislators; email them; drop by their offices if you can at a time they're there, and urge them to support these bills, if they want you to support them.

Across the river in Illinois is another story, where most gun rights advocacy activity is likely to be defensive in nature (such as defeating HB 180--handgun dealer licensing). That, though, is a discussion for another day.

The lesson is clear. Our public servants need from time to time to be reminded that they are, indeed, servants. It is our civic duty, as good masters, to provide the reminder.

Source - http://www.examiner.com/x-2581-St-Lo...-of-grassroots

- Janq

[Nose Nuggets]

Well done.

Completely unrelated, i saw a great Fark headline the other day.


"45 inches of snow in Baltimore means 8 murder free days IN A ROW!"

[Pre-diddy]

Frightening. Never heard one word about this until now. Thats what I get for paying attention.



<== Ashamed MD resident.