(January 21, 2001) Bill Clinton wanted it, Mike Miller delivered it, Parris Glendening bought it, Cas Taylor backed it and you got it. Here's the latest on the 'unmentionable' gun act of 2000 and what it means to you and me to date.

MSP Shell Games. Maryland firearm dealers continue to report a chronic shortage of handguns. Maryland State Police efforts to strong-arm distributors have had the chilling effect they apparently sought, as few companies are willing to risk the civil persecution threatened by leadership for not providing shell cases. Yes, it's all in excess of what the law says (it only applies to manufacturers), but nobody wishes to be made an example of what an out-of-control State Police administrator can do with unlimited tax dollars pressing a bogus case.

The December 2000 Handgun Roster - a list of all handguns approved for lawful sale in Maryland - contains 1,428 makes and models of guns reviewed by the state, from 188 manufacturers. We can't yet identify a full dozen of these manufacturers who are meeting the MSP shell mandates; fewer still distributors are braving the climate of corporate fear being cultivated by the administration. Some wholesalers have been so intimidated by MSP that they now do no business in Maryland, guns or otherwise. Bottom line? Only a small percentage of Maryland-legal guns can be found for sale at this time. And for those, the law of supply and demand is exacting a heavy toll, compared with the cost a consumer in some other state might pay to buy the same gun.

A de facto 'poll tax' in our future? Our handgun shortage is partly due to the administration's regulatory power trip, free of oversight from the General Assembly. Much the same thing appears about to happen based on the next wave of mandates from Glendening's so-called Responsible Gun Safety Act: Mandatory safety training.

We all know that starting next year, you won't be able to buy a handgun without showing you've passed a state-approved safety class. But nobody knows what that class will be. The law mandates that safety class standards must be published by January 1 of this year. So far, no regs. Insiders in a position to know have speculated we ought not expect to see them until at least the General Assembly's deadline for submitting legislation this year; if true, this suggests police don't want pro-gun legislators to be in a position to try a legislative remedy.

Even worse is word that one of the provisions under consideration is the compilation of names of anyone who takes a handgun safety class. Insiders have floated this idea as if a 'convenience for the consumer' but you and I both know it's back-door licensing of handgun owners, something we've fought for so many years in Annapolis. Now training mandated at the purchase, it isn't far from making citizens who want to keep their handguns take a refresher course every three years. This has been proposed in the past, and some staff members acknowledge being split on whether to drive this through now or wait until the first year of the Townsend administration.

Well, we'll know whenever the state bothers to follow its law and publish the regulations, but more disruption in gun sales is now almost certain. A year's lead time on publishing regulations was intended to give shops, clubs and other concerned parties a chance to plan how to meet class demand (assuming any non-police groups will be allowed to help with the instruction, which is not at all guaranteed.) Enough lag in publishing the regulations will guarantee that lawful handgun purchasers will be turned down for failure to pass a class that doesn't exist.

Apparently the state wants us to get used to not having handguns. Isn't it interesting how you and I can go to jail for committing little technical violations of this new law, but the state is free to break this law however it wants?

The Ferguson Factor. We all know the history of SB 211's passage in the General Assembly. Our strongest chance to stop it lay in the Senate, where our community had concentrated resources in the last election to bar the left wing from achieving a supermajority. In the latter we succeeded, but all the hard work building such defenses was tossed in the crapper as Senator Tim Ferguson, speaking on behalf of the pro-gun caucus, cut his own deal. He approached the Senate President and offered capitulation in return for insubstantial wording changes to the bill plus the addition of new two members to the Handgun Roster Board. This is why there was no filibuster or fight in the Senate: Miller's people jumped at a free chance to get easier passage of the gun control package.

At the time 211 passed, everyone more or less figured Ferguson had written the issue off and wanted a quick end to the matter. He didn't want to work up a sweat in a fight he might not win. (He's becoming known in Annapolis for treating most issues this way, apparently.) In order to quickly settle the matter and blow town, he needed some phony-baloney changes to the bill so he could muddy the water at home. He needed something to point to and say he got. Nobody knows where the idea to change the Roster Board came up but that's what he concocted. And this brings us up to the present …

Much as advocates warned (when begging Ferguson to fight rather than capitulate) the Roster Board is once again one of the roadblocks to gun sales, thanks to Ferguson's change in SB 211. The Board has had vacancies for much of Glendening's tenure, in some cases going years without appointments. During these stretches, handguns sought by a consumer would be left in limbo, since the Board could not reach a quorum to act. Only in the previous year did it finally get slots filled at all. Now that Ferguson has increased the Board by two, the anti-gun representatives know their absence, together with the new unfilled slots, is sufficient to stop new handguns from being approved. Senator Ferguson endorsed the purpose of the Handgun Roster Board, which is to deny Maryland citizens our own choice of handguns. Now we can experience his handiwork. Meanwhile, Ferguson continues to posture back in his hometown press, telling constituents how great a friend he is to the firearms community.

Ironically, it appears that the Roster Board may have less to do in the coming year, even if it does get a quorum. The rate of applications to sell new guns in Maryland is dropping. Apparently, dealers and manufactures who can't get a gun past the MSP ballistic fingerprint barrier have no incentive to petition the Roster Board for new guns which can only be sold in theory. The situation continues to get nothing but worse.

The Gizmo Gotcha. None of what we're experiencing now even remotely has to do with the next wave of 211 restrictions, which will be the ban on handguns not having "integrated mechanical safety devices." That part will kick in after next year. Only the Good Lord knows what that will mean, though anti-gunners assure us what was contemplated in the language is that which is not widely available today. No surprise there.