(April 15, 2001) An acquaintance's daughter attends first grade at a public school in Maryland City. She came home the other day and asked her Dad if it was deer hunting season right now. No, he said, deer hunting is in the fall. He asked why she wanted to know. It turns out the girl had just been given a 'gun safety education' class at school. The teacher told her that she shouldn't have anything to do with people who kill deer or have guns because they are bad. The little girl said she was glad she could still like Daddy until fall.

This breaks my heart, but it is likely to be the norm across Maryland now that the state will mandate "gun safety" education in all grades and all schools. HB 791 passed the General Assembly with the strong backing of both gun groups (eager to see the NRA's Eddie Eagle program listed in law for the first time, even if only as an option) and anti-gun groups (openly eager for the opportunity to change the culture of firearm ownership.) Governor Parris Glendening will sign this into law, an unexpected bonus after leadership declared no more gun bills would pass following the hard fight over SB 211 last year - the "Gun Safety Act."

WHAT DOES THIS LAW DO?

HB 791 requires the State Department of Education to prepare guidelines for gun safety education. Each county Board of Education will then prepare a plan for implementing the state's criteria. By law, those who prepare these plans may consider each of three example sources of material: The NRA's Eddie Eagle program, MAHA's STAR (Straight Talk About Risks) program, and a program called "In a Flash" prepared by a group of emergency room physicians. The state may elect to use parts of all, some or none of these examples. At that point, all schools in a given county must use that county's program.

By law, no class used in the schools may involve the display or handling of any firearm or ammunition. There is language stating that if the county elects to use a hunter safety class in upper level classes, then firearms may be handled at a sport shooting range.

The first grader's story above makes clear what gun safety education already goes on in some classrooms. Some rooms are obviously already lost to us. What's at issue is treatment of firearms culture in the rest of Maryland's classrooms. What used to be gun-neutral environments, with safety treated as the parents wish at home, must now become an issue everywhere. Our frank expectation is that more classrooms will end up teaching gun hatred (as above) instead real gun safety. Gun ownership will become demonized in population centers of the state.

Nobody knows now what the actual curricula will look like; we must wait for bureaucrats to build the guidelines. What we do know is that those in charge of making the decision aren't friends of gun owners. Who is the head of the Department of Education? Dr. Nancy Grasmick. That's a name you would recognize if you watch MAHA's newsletters. Grasmick shows up there being thanked by the anti-gun group for her service in promoting MAHA's agenda. The other teaching organizations that will surely become involved represent a veritable who's who list of groups on record in the bill files of other legislation as opposing private ownership of firearms. Ironically, most education groups providing testimony on HB 791 opposed it as either an unfunded mandate or contrary to a state tradition of allowing each county to control its own curriculum.

THE BIRD IS NOW A POLITICAL ANIMAL

During this debate on public policy, a great deal of misinformation circulated. One spin was that this is a mandate for Eddie Eagle, the ostensible 'pro-gun' option. (In truth, Eddie is as apolitical as it gets.) Another story was that now by law schools cannot be denied use of Eddie Eagle. That's not true either. All that can be said of the NRA program is it's one of three examples that be considered by those who will ultimately make decisions. Ironically, this mandate may well result in a net reduction of the number of schools using NRA's program in Maryland, once county operations are forced to come up with a program to supersede what might have been done before.

More disturbing was misinformation about the extent of the problem this education mandate is intended to solve. Some proponents of the bill portrayed a shocking level of 'gun violence' in Maryland that cried out for redress. A critical look at the data shows the rate of accidents involving firearms could hardly be lower; high rates of firearm injury are what come when you count criminal misuse of guns, not accidents. If proponents believe the state class will somehow reduce criminal misuse of guns, they're surely contemplating a very different classroom story than they portrayed to the legislature. (Of course, that's what we have figured all along.)

WHAT STARTED ALL THIS?

The driver in this play was MAHA. Without them promoting their final solution, mandates would never have gotten near a front burner. (This is unlike last year, where the drivers were Parris Glendening and Mike Miller, serving Bill Clinton's plan for pushing though at state levels that which could not get federally.)

MAHA's proposal has been a regular in town, and we've fought it for each of several years. The lobbyists paid to get our guns work a willing media expertly, and the Prices have been a gold mine for them. You know the Prices: they're the parents who cry on demand for cameras following the death of their son Jonathan, for whom MAHA has named their education proposal. We had sympathy for them up until the umpteenth time they blamed firearm owners for their 13 year old's accident. Our sympathy gets used up fast when it is turned against us. They say the problem is he had never been taught by schools to avoid guns; we think their son would be alive if they'd taught him not to run with a gang that goes into another's home, steals a gun, loads it and points it another human.

[As we have said before: We understand the Price's desire to blame anyone but themselves for Jonathan's death, but that doesn't translate into a willingness to overlook MAHA's shameless exploitation of them. Are the Prices used? Obviously. After each carefully scripted performance, they're whisked away least they accidentally hear the views of opponents. Their story is adjusted depending upon which bit of MAHA legislation is being promoted.]

If we've defeated this legislation before, what was different this year? There were several contributing factors. The first was that a safety bill was submitted by a strong pro-gun legislator, Delegate Carmen Amedori. This sent a message that the firearms community had placed education on the table. Then in short order, MAHA's SB 124 cleared the Senate by a vote of 41-3. (We don't blame our pro-gun Senators on this vote; at that point nobody had given them a detailed briefing on the bill. Maybe some of us got too comfortable with the promise that 'nothing else goes through after SB 211' but by the time we found that gun groups we thought were stopping a bill were instead trying to pass a bill it was too late to stop MAHA's handiwork in committee.) All of a sudden some gun safety education mandate became a real possibility, in a year that gun policy debate should have been slow.

The second difference from previous years was that House Speaker Casper Taylor was carrying the baggage of his role in passing SB 211 last year for Miller, Glendening and Clinton. His constituents in western Maryland showed what sustained, grassroots expressions of outrage can accomplish. (Thank you, Cumberland readers!) The pressure at home resulted in Taylor involving himself in a string of ostensibly pro-gun moves as damage control. With signs that the NRA wanted a gun safety bill (for political if not public policy reasons), Taylor submitted HB 791.

By this time, alarm bells were sounding, and we saw another concrete example of how you can make a difference. HB 791 passed committee and went to the House floor for debate, but based on alerts that went out, public outcry caused the bill to be returned to committee - we thought to bury all education bills for the session there. This was a real coup all by itself, folks, and you did it. No other gun groups in Maryland went on record in opposition.

But within a few days, classic Maryland power politics came into play. Once again, leadership wanted to ensure that 'everybody gets a little something.' MAHA still wanted education policy placed in bureaucrat hands, NRA appeared reluctant to dogmatically oppose all proposals, and Taylor still wanted to muddy the water back home. Hence the current and ultimate language of HB 791 was born. This is what swiftly went the legislative distance, demonstrating that the Speaker can indeed pass gun bills (as we more or less knew from last year anyway.) Pro-gunners who backed HB 791 thinking politics had been removed were then given a surprise: leadership amended MAHA's SB 124 to match 791's language then passed it. ("There, the Prices get a bill too. Everyone happy?")

Ultimately, grassroots operations working from our information service could not overcome the combined will of pro- and anti-gun groups behind what was widely reported as compromise language. Some voted for it because of leadership's request, some because they knew the fix was in, some because of NRA backing and some because of MAHA backing. The House's final vote on it was 98-33 (for HB 791) and 100-30 (for SB 124); the Senate's final vote was 33-11 (for HB 791) and 36-10 to concur with the version of SB 124 as moved through the House.

BOTTOM LINE ...

All votes will appear in the post-session legislative directory that we are preparing now. We also have votes listed on our web site, www.direct-action.org and of course you can get the details for yourself from the good folks at Legislative Services at mlis.state.md.us (Remember you can call them toll free for bills, votes and other info, at 301 970 5400 or 410 946 5400 ) During session we published "Top Ten Reasons Local Gunowners Oppose HB 791" … feel free to ask us for a copy next time we correspond if you didn't get one already.