(Octobr 8, 2000) Glendening's new gun control took effect on October 1, with astonishingly little fanfare from the press that swooned over the legislation when it passed last spring. It's more precise to say only the law's first phase has taken effect; its other provisions kick in over the coming years. Starting in 2002 is the training mandate (handgun buyers must show they've received police-approved training.) Also coming is Glendening's ban on new handguns that lack an "integral mechanical safety device." (All anyone knows about what that means is that it is "nothing which is widely available today" according to Senator Van Hollen, who championed the legislation.) That's all looming in our future. The new provisions we must deal with now are bad enough, so here's the rundown on some of the key aspects and issues.

Maryland State Police Shell Game. Most attention has focused on the new mandate that any new handgun sold in the state have with it a shell casing fired from it. This case must be given to State Police for ballistic fingerprinting.

The law is very precise in its language on this: The requirement is placed on any manufacturer that ships a handgun into Maryland for sale. But dealers almost never buy directly from manufacturers, rather, they buy from distributors. The General Assembly clearly understands the difference between manufacturers and distributors, since it dealt with other legislation even in the last session which carefully differentiated between the two. We don't doubt that the anti-gunners who drove this through envisioned the broader interpretation; that they failed to craft bill language saying just what they meant is yet another example of the shoddy legislative workmanship now typical in Miller's Senate. But using "legislative intent" to apply a new law is something which is only done when the law's language is itself ambiguous. SB 211's statement of the scope is quite precise. The law only applies to manufacturers.

We explain that so you will understand the shell game now being played by MSP. As written here previously, few manufacturers were showing signs of being able to comply with the new requirement, so whether or not handguns would be available for sale here depended upon just what the state would do concerning its shell casing requirement. If police intended to demand shell cases even of guns brought in by distributors - beyond the scope of their authority - we (and some dealers) were ready to litigate. But when MSP began giving Dealer Seminars at the end of August, they explained very clearly their intent only to demand shell cases for guns truly shipped into the state directly from the manufacturer. In short, MSP was prepared to concede anything we were prepared to litigate. "If you get a gun from a distributor (not a manufacturer) and it has a case with it, then we'd like it, but otherwise you can still sell the gun." That's pretty plain, and all dealers present were relieved to hear their livelihood was not about to dry up for want of products to sell. Attendees chalked the new law up as amounting to only another layer of Mickey Mouse paperwork. They learned how MSP intended them to satisfy the new red tape and left it at that.

Long time advocates in the business of gun rights have said you can never go wrong by distrusting information given out by MSP or the AG. Apparently this advice remains sound. After dealers were told flatly that the new procedures would not disrupt business, MSP Superintendent David Mitchell and his troops began contacting gun manufacturers to chill sales. Contradicting the message given to dealers, they revealed their intent to hold manufacturers to the case requirement no matter what route its products happen to take into the state. By what means do they intend to enforce the requirement? The administration apparently intends to threaten civil suits against out-of-state manufacturers, based on the actions of distributors, even though those wholesalers are entirely separate corporate entities and, for that matter, not in the scope of the new law Glendening just passed anyway.

In other words, the administration intends to bully companies with just the same threats that it used to help bully the gun company Smith & Wesson into making a deal with the Clinton administration. Facing a murky legal picture and the threat of another expensive legal fight with an opponent armed with an endless flow of tax dollars, manufacturers and distributors alike are putting a halt to Maryland sales. (That's Glock's message in the example.) Nobody wants to be first to "call the bluff" of MSP. Said one wholesaler, "Your police are out of control. When the top cop in any state draws a line in the sand and tells you he'll rain **** on you if you step across, it doesn't matter if he has no legal argument. I don't make enough from Maryland sales to cover the cost of fighting off your army of lawyers. Someone else needs to be the test case. I'll sell my guns somewhere else. ... You guys gotta fix your own state."

Retailers now face an artificially created shortfall of handgun products they can sell. Guns brought into state prior to 1 October are legal to transfer, so dealers who knew to build up inventory may be able to keep up with demand for a while. But most, who maintain very little stock on the shelves, will go into the holiday sales season without prospects of staying open into the new year. MSP has turned the requirement into, at least for now, a de facto handgun ban.

Police dance around blatant flaws in the bill language. The letter of this new law requires that each purchaser of a handgun sign a statement saying he is 'under 30 years of age and never convicted of a juvenile crime.' Those of us on the high side of 30 can't legally meet this requirement. This of course is one of the blatant and embarrassing gaffs in the language which got driven through; passing his bill was more important to Mike Miller than reading his bill. So for months we've wondered: how will MSP tiptoe around this one? The solution is to bury the issue in red tape. Form 77R (which you fill out to ask for permission to exercise your rights) has been totally rewritten, so that each statement required by law must be separately initialed and checked as either "yes, no or not applicable." That isn't what the law asks, but in this case the administration's goal of downplaying their screwup will help sell more guns. Who are we to get in the way?

A trigger lock must transfer on all handguns. Moreover, MSP will not allow a buyer to bring in his own trigger lock to put on the gun for purposes of transferring it out of the store. Heck, allowing otherwise would partly defeat the goal of driving up costs, wouldn't it. The AG's office directs that you must buy a trigger lock from the dealer.

Roster Board is Expanded. The Van Hollen - Ferguson amendment to SB 211 expanded the Handgun Roster Board by two members. To date we have no information that suggests Glendening is moving to fill these slots. Remember, Parris has in the past gone for years without making vacancy appointments. Bottom line? The Board will have more difficulty in reaching a quorum, so new guns proposed for Maryland sale will land in limbo until the Board is able to act. Parris is not overly concerned about timely consideration of new guns for sale here.

New regulations to implement SB 211 take effect in secret. Regulations are the separate and detailed directions that an agency will use to implement laws passed in Annapolis. These are important to get right: the devil's in the details, which is why state regs that are proposed by an agency must be published months ahead of their enactment, in order to allow for public comment. Then an oversight committee in Annapolis must review and approve the proposed regs, potentially after holding their own public hearings.

People on all sides of the gun issue should have grave concern for how the regulations to implement 211 have taken effect. They aren't much, frankly. They're largely just a transcription of the bill language itself. We understand why nobody wanted to spell out administration plans: the bill language itself is terribly flawed, a natural result of how the law was driven through the General Assembly. Spelling out implementation of one part would expose inconsistencies elsewhere in the language, and right now they just want the embarrassment to go away. The real problem with lack of detail is that vague regulations let any agency implement a policy of the week. When just about any administrative procedure will satisfy the law, bureaucrats can change what they do without pesky obligations like getting approval.

Regulations for SB 211 were prepared over the summer, but not released. Instead of using normal approval process, the administration waited until the last minute then submitted them as "Emergency Regulations." So much for public comment! (What was the emergency? Since the regs are a simple copy of the law, six months' lead time seem more than adequate for a government worker to transcribe the text. Parris just wanted to keep everyone guessing about his plans.) The emergency regs took effect 1 October. They will be printed next month, with the date set to look like they appeared before enactment. Police will let the public, at a meeting later in October, comment after the fact on what took effect. Just pop by State Police Headquarters, sign in and tell 'em what you think. (No, really, they're serious!)

How early did MSP really know what they intended to do? (Okay, the real answer is 1998 when the legislation was first drafted in detail but what about the regs?) At least by early summer, when the administration funded a $1.8M contract to a Rockville firm to do the ballistic fingerprinting lab work. Obviously someone knew the plan back then.

The population of felons in Maryland went up overnight on 1 October. It is now illegal for someone up to age 30 and with a juvenile record to possess a handgun, even if he or she has a clean adult record. MSP now says it will not gain access to sealed juvenile records to go hunting for these newly minted evil-doers. That puts this law in the same boat as the 'mental health' disability, that is, one that sounds good when pols posture to the ill-informed public, but for which there is no hope of enforcement ahead of time. It will only be used as a crime stats-building exercise when someone wants to put the squeeze on an unsuspecting young person later (e.g., in a divorce proceeding.)