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Health & Fitness

House Judicial Committee Passes Firearms Safety Bill of 2013 with Amendments

Basic overview of controversial committee debate on Maryland's Firearms Safety Act of 2013.

Good Friday for the rest of the state was just another regular day for the House Judicial Committee and the House Health and Government Operations Committee, both committees met in an eight hour session to debate and make amendments to SB281, and some of those amendments were not without controversy.

The joint committee made some changes to SB281, which had already been amended by the Senate, some of those amendments include:

Changing the licensing fee charged for a Handgun Qualification License, (yes, they changed the name since regulated long guns would be banned), from $25 to $50.

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Adding the Hunter's Safety Course as an acceptable form of training for the HQL.

An amendment was adopted to impose a disqualification for firearms on anyone who is found guilty of a crime of violence, and who then is given "probation before judgment" (PBJ) by the judge.  This means if you receive a PBJ, you have to surrender your   and are prohibited from purchasing fireamrs until your probation is served and the PBJ is expunged from your record.

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An amendment to repeal the old "ballistic fingerprinting" law was rejected, although it was stated that the machine used to seek casing matches has been broken since 2005, and it didn't sound like anybody was planning to fix it.

Another amendment by Delegate Simmons, to require medical professionals to report to law enforcement any imminent threat to inflict major physical injury on a named person, failed after considerable debate.

In perhaps the most striking display of ideological rigidity all day, the controlling block of Democrats voted down an amendment to allow current off-duty peace officers, and retired law enforcement officers who are certified under the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, to carry firearms on public school property.  So, if you are an off duty police officer and you are at your childs sporting event at a school or on school property, you need to leave your firearm at home.

Now for the entertainment of the day, an amendment was Delegate Michael Smigiel (R-36) was initially adopted to deny good-time points and early release for persons incarcerated for using violent crimes using firearms. However, the governor's office apparently twisted somebody's arm, Judiciary Chairman Joe Vallario ordered a re-do on the vote, and the amendment was declared defeated on a tie, 23-23, to the loud protests of Mr. Smigiel and many of the spectators.  The vote and revote were caught on video by the media and the video is available for review on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xge789Mo-c0&feature=youtu.be .

I am awaiting the full, unedited video of the vote from start to finish.

So this bill still does nothing to further penalize criminals or make it harder for criminals to get firearms.  The bill still tagerts firearms (assault long guns), that have been responsible for less than 15 firearms deaths in the State of Marylnd over the past five years.

The bill goes to the house floor on Monday April 1, and will more than likely be moved by special order to Tuesday for floor debate and further amendments before being voted on by the full house.

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