Once again Maryland leads the way to new levels of gun control in America, as Parris Glendening got his so-called "Responsible Gun Safety Act" passed and quickly signed.
What good were those alerts and our calls?
What drove this legislation? It was all about one thing: a photo op with Bill Clinton at a bill signing for gun control.
Clinton’s agenda in this passion play is plain: he believes gun control is an issue that will sweep his people into office in November’s Congressional elections. Delighted that the current Congress balks at his ill-conceived proposals, he is flogging state bodies for media-ripened symbols, which his spinmeisters weave into a story about leadership. The story is more important than the destination to which they lead; in fact, since the whole point is control, it’s better when he doesn’t need to confuse voters with lots of icky facts. Keep looking like leaders and they can keep control, they think.
Maryland is fertile ground for Clinton to grow symbology. In it his party has a lock on legislature, where opposition is treated as a pet to be fed table scraps by masters who good-naturedly keep tokens in the castle. Also here Clinton finds a budget surplus that only unabashed tax-and-spend policy in an overheated economy can build – it’s an easy place to fund social engineering. And finally, Bill Clinton finds the will to use these assets to do his bidding here: He finds Parris Glendening and Senate President Mike Miller.
Little recognized here in Maryland, Senate President Miller is a wheel in national party matters. He works hard for fund raising to recruit candidates. (In fact on Capitol Hill, Miller is better known and gets more credit for this bill’s passage than Glendening.) Clinton knew Miller would heed the call of his party and president.
Glendening had more calculating motives. The public has politics on its mind, and Parris knows now is the time to build national name recognition. If he is to succeed at fund raising for a future office bid, or compete for cabinet slots in an upcoming Gore administration, then he needs to show he’s a leader. It won’t matter at what, just that he’s a leader at something the left loves. He sought trend-setting liberal issues to champion; Clinton gave him a big one in guns.
All these factors combined to make this Gun Safety Act the number one target in session 2000. Readers here all knew it was coming from as far back as 1998, and we already see how it is being leveraged elsewhere on the national scene.
How did this bill pass? SB 211’s language is based upon the Johns-Hopkins model legislation, as promoted by Steve Teret on behalf of those who pay him to ban guns, the Joyce Foundation. As such it has long been drafted, waiting only for the right moment in Annapolis. Documents procured in response to a Public Information Act request shows Teret relayed bill edits from the Joyce Foundation to State Police as early January of 1999 – months before the Task Force on Childproof Guns was formed to develop legislation.
The key to passing any gun bill is knowing how it fares in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. Walter Baker chairs this committee, and was involved with passing a gun bill all along. He backed major portions of the plan, but his support alone would not guarantee favorable report of a bill from his committee. A prime consideration was finding a way to advance a bill to the floor without exposing Baker’s help back in his otherwise pro-gun home district.
The administration’s first strategy for getting a gun bill out to the floor was to pick up on testimony given by Maryland gun dealers. They asked that citizens who buy gun safes be given a tax credit. Antigunners proposed this as a separate bill, then assigned it to a tax committee. The idea would be to pass it there, then later amend it to have the rest of the Governor’s gun package. This is essentially how they passed the so-called ‘assault pistol’ ban in the 90’s.
Our constitution demands that each bill passed deal chiefly with one topic, so amending sweeping change to a bill on floor is rightly seen as an abuse of the system. This doesn’t bother leadership. But they quickly changed their strategy when early in session Maryland’s highest court voided (on constitutional grounds) another law that leadership passed using just this approach. They squealed in outrage, but they also sought another way to get a gun bill out, least they risk it being challenged on the same grounds later.
Leadership also had to be concerned about how to pass the bill without a disruptive filibuster – the chief card pro-gun forces had to play. This was a real threat, since enough gun owners got on board with our projects in 1998 elections for us to prevent a super-majority of antigunners taking over in the Senate. Leadership needed a way to bring pressure to bear, then give cover to those who might cave in.
That pressure came in the form of Bill Clinton’s deal with Smith & Wesson. At a key point in negotiations with S&W, Clinton’s lawyers gave minor concessions to clinch the deal just in time for use in Annapolis. The agreement was based in great part on the same Teret model legislation, so it was easy for Glendening to scale back his proposal to the S&W level, then begin bleating about how sensible was his plan.
Breaking ‘Slick & Wesson’ – now the weapon of choice for despots, bureaucrats and big government – put pressure on pro-gun Senators, but this wasn’t a guarantee they’d break. For that they had an ace in the hole: Senator Tim Ferguson.
With the S&W impact sinking in, Glendening and Miller moved quickly. Instead of forcing a committee vote, they decided to bring 211 to the floor by a little-known Senate "Rule 43" requiring a full vote of the Senate.
They launched their attack in earnest on Thursday, March 23. Because of the date of 211’s introduction, Miller needed a 2/3’s majority to activate the bill. After a brief debate, it was clear he had only a simple majority favoring his tactic.
Miller’s solution? Declare victory. As he openly explained, what’s the point of being Senate President if you can’t do what you want? He declared SB 211 ready to advance.
Full floor debate on the bill was scheduled for the next day, and pro-gun Senators retired to set up defenses. This would be the point to initiate a filibuster. Materials were collected, amendments drafted and we set up to go to war.
Senator Tim Ferguson sought and was given the role of the ‘floor leader’ for pro-gun Senators. It’s common for like-minded legislators to agree on one to speak for all, and he was thought to be a natural choice on this issue.
But when pro-gun forces convened early Friday morning to work out final details of the battle plan, everyone present was uniformly shocked when Ferguson revealed he had met with the other side and cut a deal. In return for a minor amendment – the language for which he refused to provide until after it was passed – Ferguson agreed that progunners would not filibuster, offer amendments nor even indulge in extended debate. In short: capitulation.
Contrary to the count provided by pro-gun forces, Ferguson claimed we had insufficient votes to sustain a filibuster. For this reason, he stated, an agreement would let our side get a minor edit into the bill, which we’d not get otherwise.
Unfortunately, it appears Ferguson only decided the count of pro-gun Senators was low at his meeting with Miller.
Gun owners begged him to reconsider before it was too late, but ultimately the deal was struck. In turning on gunowners he openly declared in the statehouse lobby: "Gunowners won’t even attend my <expletive> $25 chicken dinner fundraisers. Why should I take any grief for them?"
Pro-gun Senators express a sense of shock and betrayal that Ferguson would offer such a deal without consulting those for whom he spoke. Some express anger that Ferguson later acknowledged he knew all along his amendment had little substance. But a deal is a deal in Annapolis, and Senators backed the deal cut in their name, not realizing until later how little it bought. The bill passed with barely a whimper.
What did Ferguson get? As he later acknowledged, nothing much for us. One change had to do with training mandates. Our side was concerned that a requirement for state classes prior to a purchase could become a barrier to the exercise of rights. One goal in a planned floor fight was to get the state to accept classes given by gun groups as satisfying the mandate, and we had drafted an amendment to this effect.
But Ferguson ignored our language, and instead dealt to get an exemption for police, military, and people already issued a carry permit. His deal also lets gun groups give the state course (once police decide what it should be) if police give permission. We know what happens with police discretion.
The Ferguson deal adds two Governor-appointed members to the Handgun Roster Board, requiring each to be either a mechanical or electrical engineer. This idea was out of the blue (and may have been intended as a face-saving edit so he can say he ‘got something.’) Unfortunately, in proposing this, Ferguson validated the purpose of the Roster Board. In an era when gun lock mandates will make guns enormously more complex, Ferguson promoted an expanded Board as a way of filtering out more guns from lawful sale: "The last thing we want is faulty guns going on the street."
In the end, it appears that the only thing Ferguson got for his surprise deal is the favor of the President of the Senate.
What he gave up was any ability for our side to filibuster (whether to stop or even just delay the bill long enough for other attacks to be mounted.) Our forces believed we had a solid block able to sustain a filibuster, so if Ferguson had a different count, then he should have named names (he has not.) Had any Senator claimed to be with us then caved in, we would have been able to target him in the next election – something we’re better able to do each time the left wing press gives anti-gun headlines (i.e., free advertising for us.) Ferguson’s capitulation had the effect of flushing away the countless thousands of dollars and hours of effort put forth in 1998 by sincere gunowners, who worked hard to give us the ability to block legislation in exactly this bottleneck.
Ferguson is already mailing constituents about how strong a fight he put up. Apparently he wants to have it both ways –a friend of Miller and a champion for us. But his spin does not stand up. We needed 16 senators for a filibuster. In one letter Ferguson laments we had only 14 Republicans with us. (True, but omits progun Dems.) In another letter he says senators folded after smart guns were dropped– but there he cites a count taken after capitulation. (Smart guns were off the table before filibuster was an option.) His story changes.
Ultimately Ferguson can only be judged by his constituents. We invite them to examine the actual record for themselves to decide whether the "Van Hollen, Ferguson" amendment, as adopted, is substantive. Listen to Ferguson’s own words on the floor of the Senate: "It’s a good compromise." Ask if a real gun-rights champion declares on the Senate floor: "In a perfect world there wouldn’t be such a thing as a gun." (Ferguson has other arithmetic problems than just counting votes. In the same floor speech when he endorsed the Saturday Night Special Ban he claims to have been an engineer "for over 30 years." His bio states he was born in 1955, placing him in the profession before age 15. Voters may wish to look closer at all of his credentials.)
Once SB 211 passed in the Senate, it fell to Speaker Casper Taylor to ensure it passed ‘clean’ in the House, that is, with no amendments. Had any amendment been sustained, then the bill would be returned to the Senate for a vote after any differences were worked out in a conference committee. At that time, pro-gun Senators would no longer be bound by a Ferguson deal and so would be free to filibuster.
The House is run by different rules, and filibusters are not an option there. Pro-gun delegates tried desperately to find any amendment that would appeal to enough colleagues so as to make change. But Cas Taylor was true to the deals he cut with Glendening, at one point personally supervising a committee hearing to ensure antigunners stayed in line.
Many of the bill’s serious defects are present in the final law because of Cas Taylor’s "clean bill" mantra. Flaws that make even anti-gun legislators cringe were preserved, and a record number of requests for interpretation were sent to the AG’s office. That means even the legislators couldn’t figure out what the bill meant before they voted on it. This law is seen by all as on the fast track to courts to decide its meaning. Remember, a General Assembly isn’t supposed to knowingly pass the buck to the Judicial branch even before the law is enacted! Cas Taylor wasn’t concerned with a Bill of Rights, he was concerned with a lawyer’s right to bill.
There are many ways a Speaker can press delegates for a vote. On the gun bill, Taylor worked hand in glove with the Governor to use one of the toughest weapons of all: budget. The budget bill was held (past constitutional limits in fact) as a threat to delegates who might not play ball with them.
The message was simple: Vote for gun control or Taylor would ensure an amendment went on the budget bill to rob your district of funding. Did we mention the budget was set to be finalized minutes after the floor vote on the gun bill?
[Glendening boasted he was "proud to have leveraged the power of the budget to promote this important legislation" though he denies "buying votes." Go figure. But there’s no denying that leadership killed a $25,000 request for range improvements to a police training facility – in the district of Delegate Kevin Kelly, who fought hard on our behalf.]
The only good news for us is that in order to pass SB 211 ‘clean’ the House had to take up-or-down votes on a host of amendments we can use in 2002 elections. One dealt with problems with mandated integral gun locks. What about people with disabilities who can use any current gun but who can’t operate new ‘Glendening Guns’? Will they be able to get a new product in the future? No. Senior citizens with arthritis can get a medicine bottle that doesn’t have ‘child safe’ caps, but they won’t be given an exception from the General Assembly on guns. Neither will vets, some of whom stood to wave with their one remaining arm as anti-gunners voted down a proposal to exempt people with disabilities from gun lock mandates. In 2002 they will have a job explaining why "any bill is better than no bill."
For me, the low point as SB 211 cleared the House came as Delegate Valderamma explained his vote. He stated that in his "home country" years ago, gun crime went down once a total gun ban was implemented. For that reason, he’d vote for any gun control Glendening submitted. Valderamma is from the Philippines, and the controls to which he referred were imposed by Marcos. To what depths have we plunged when a Maryland Delegate will use a dictator’s totalitarian regime as model for controls to implement here? Whether street crime goes down due to a gun ban is irrelevant when one’s family is in greater danger of being gunned down in their living room by government forces.
Throughout session, two other factors affected the situation. The first is the role played by Beretta Corporation. Beretta remained publicly opposed to the legislation, and we are happy to report that Beretta’s Jeff Reh, backed by technical experts from the company, gave superb hearing testimony, both before the House and Senate committees. (In fact, we characterize their material as among the best given in the course of the very long days’ worth of presentations.)
But the sad fact is that this fight’s outcome was destined from the start to be determined by raw political power, not facts. In the end, the final shape of this legislation was set in the back room between Miller and the governor’s folks. What’s awkward is Beretta’s lobbyist was present. At this meeting, ‘smart guns’ were dropped and Beretta was given expanded protection to sell their products out of state.
Should Beretta have threatened to take their operation out of state (not to mention the home district of Mike Miller)? That isn’t ours to ask. But we’d like to know what role was played at that meeting by Beretta’s lobbyist – a scion of Miller. If someone were to say Beretta gave up the fight in return for protecting their bottom line, we would have no evidence to refute the claim. Still, we give Beretta credit for being in the fight when some gun groups weren’t in town.
The final consideration was a clear negative for us: police groups flatly sold out. Rank and file cops overwhelmingly opposed this legislation, a fact that was communicated last year to the governor’s task force. Glendening correctly saw he would have a hard time selling any gun bill in town if a large contingent of officers showed up to oppose it. How to solve that problem? Exempt cops from gun lock mandates, then include incentives for police ‘gun people’ (those most likely to be vocal opponents.) Incentives came in the form of guns: sale to officers will be one of the only ways any locality can benefit from guns they want to get rid of. No more trading used police guns to manufacturers for newer products, and no more trading confiscated firearms for new police gear. Localities must get cash by assigning guns to individual officers, then allowing them to buy such guns.
In return for a sweet deal, groups like the Fraternal Order of Police kept silent and their lobbyists helped to promote Glendening’s legislation behind the scenes in Annapolis.
The state FOP still has in force a resolution stating strong opposition to any legislation which would affect the right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms. A bill which will have the effect of banning new sale of almost all handguns now on the market unequivocally falls under this resolution but was promoted by the organization instead. If cops can’t be trusted to follow their own rules, what else can’t they be trusted with? Beat cops have a stain on the badge that only a change of leadership can cleanse. Citizens should think hard before backing any future police-initiated legislation.
What about the good guys? Almost without exception, our known friendlies stood up for us and did the right thing. In some cases, they went to heroic lengths on our behalf. After Ferguson’s deal left pro-gun Senators between a rock and a hard place, some asked for (and got) floor time in order to speak to both the press and their constituents. Senator Andy Harris used his time to eviscerate rabidly anti-gun Senator Chris Van Hollen, who served as floor leader on behalf of SB 211. Nobody who heard that grilling could believe there was any basis for passing this legislation. Even Van Hollen, as 211’s chief spokesman, couldn’t answer the most basic questions. All he could do was stand on the senate floor and relay answers phoned in from his state police handlers.
We got the same grim satisfaction from watching Delegate George Owings dress down antigunners who demonstrated ignorance of the bill in the House. It was like watching him skin fascists alive, done with gusto and surgical precision.
Rather than recount all the battles, and risk offense for not mentioning one or the other of our friendlies, we will refer you to the vote list for a full accounting of who was where on the issue. This appears in our legislative directory, that is updated (and should be back from the printer by the first of June.) Next time you send a donation to the newsletter, let us know if you’d like a copy of the guide and we’ll mail it right away. We hope you’ll use it to send a note of thanks to all the friendlies who stuck with us.
Nobody cast a vote on this bill by accident. Each legislator knew what was on the line. Those who stuck with us really deserve credit. Make sure they get it!
What good were those alerts and our calls? No other bills in support of gun control passed, period. That should tell us a lot. This was supposed to be the ‘year of the gun’ and to a great extent it was. But the other side anticipated a breech in our defenses big enough to drive through much more of their agenda than just Glendening’s. A record number of bills were submitted (we tracked over 50 through session.) Ex parte confiscation proposals, repeal of state preemption law and a host of other left wing ideas went in. None lived.
We attribute this in great part to the grassroots opposition shown by our side. Apparently our direct mail alerts work. Key offices we targeted were deluged by outraged firearm owners. Our goal was to not allow an office manager to put the phone down without it ringing again from another gun owner. At critical times, we succeeded in this. Weary aides didn’t appreciate the volume, but the message got across: we are organizing and we can make a difference.
Calls by themselves don’t stop bad bills. The only sure way to block anti-gun legislation is to elect the right people in the first place. Once elected, only two things sway a pol not already in our court: fear and greed. Phone calls don’t sway a legislator because of facts they relay, calls sway them by telegraphing how much potential there is to un-elect them next time around. (Of course, the burden will now be on us to follow through in 2002!)
What does this bill do? SB 211 is a huge bill, full of flaws. Read it yourself by calling 800 492 7122 (ask for legislative services who will mail you a free copy.) Our summary of it is appended on separate sheets, suitable for copying to your club bulletin board or printing in your own club newsletter.
Where do we go from here? The immediate evaluation to make after SB 211 became law was whether a referendum is feasible. In Maryland, citizens can take non-budget laws to a vote of the people if a sufficient number of names can be collected by petition. The key is budget: big investment is needed to support advertising close to the ballot. It isn’t like we get fair coverage in the press otherwise! We see no big group willing to invest, so referendum is out. Too bad, as gunowners turning out in 88’s referendum helped Bush to take Maryland over Dukakis in an upset.
MSP must draft regulation to define just how they intend to enforce the Act. The proposal will be published, then must be approved by the legislature (via the AELR Committee.) AELR has no ability to revise the proposal, only approve or disapprove it. They will hold hearings for public comment, so presumably we can have input then, but only about the implementation, not the law. Will we soften impact there? Well, most AELR members have just voted for this law.
That leaves litigation for us later. It takes longer and is not cheaper, but the only other choice after that is capitulation.
Summary: The strategic terrain for new gun control was set in the 1998 elections. As we forecast in that year, such assets we had to play this year were either bought or lost with how we ran campaigns for pro-gun legislators then.
In promoting SB 211, the administration waged an entirely predictable assault. We anticipated their lack of regard for simple things like truth, and they did not disappoint us. Key tactical losses for us came in the vote over bringing 211 directly to the Senate floor, and in the capitulation of Tim Ferguson for our side. Once these engagements were lost, the rest was a war of attrition that the administration could not lose. Parris happily spent our taxes against us.