How many Maryland children have died because the Glendening/Kennedy administration won't provide gun safety training mandated by its own law?

(August 1, 2001) We think the answer to that question is 'none' but since they argued for their omnibus gun control package by saying kids were dying for it, someone in the statehouse ought to explain why we don't have its classes. The state's perversion of its training mandate validates every mistrust of state gun laws.

Here's the part you already know: Starting 2002, you may not buy a regulated firearm without first satisfying the state's new training requirement, mandated by the omnibus gun control package driven through by leadership last year. That same law says the state was to have adopted regulations (and hence begun classes) by January 1, 2001, so that access to the class would not itself become a new barrier to firearm ownership.

Five months after the deadline, regulations were still not adopted nor were classes under way. We filed suit after seeing evidence that Stu Simms - the notorious antigunner who supervises the Dept of Public Safety - had no apparent plans to proceed. We asked the court to make the administration do its job rather than allow its failure to become a de facto gun ban - the second one stemming from Senate Bill 211.

Much has happened since our last report to you: The state defends its case in much the same way as it adopts regulations, which is to say, getting them to produce anything is like pulling teeth. They do everything possible to run the clock while avoiding going in front of a judge. They've missed legal deadlines, and avoided answering some questions on the record. It took a court order to get them to even partially answer interrogatories (some of which remain not fully answered) and to produce Mr. Don Hopkins, Executive Director of the Police Training Commission, for a deposition. Much of what we are about to share comes from either his answers to our questions or from records made available to us after extensive delays.

Put this in perspective: This administration enacted legislation behind the premise that people die daily for want of safety training. If they believed their own bull, it wouldn't take a lawsuit to make them do their job; they'd have had it up and running the moment it was signed into law. What drives this mandate has nothing to do with safety.

Where are the regulations? Only after we filed our lawsuit did the administration publish a draft proposal for implementing the new law. The state wants you to believe it was working hard on deep technical details from April of 2000 (when the legislation was signed into law) to June of 2001, when it published its first draft. But the truth? The proposed regs directly mirror the law, and nothing more. Normally regulations describe how the state intends to apply a law, but the state has chosen to leave the training regs ambiguous so they can fill in the blanks later. Even a bureaucrat should be embarrassed to have the law and regs presented side by side, exposing how little was done over 14 months of alleged effort. Even if you believe the regs have substance, the record shows the commission approved them in this form in November 2000, then did nothing further on them … until we filed suit. The Dept of Public Safety wants you to believe this mandate wasn't their idea, and that they were surprised to get it. The truth? Records show that training mandates date back to 1999, when Secretary Stu Simms inserted it in his final report of the Task Force on Childproof Guns, responsible for drafting SB 211 in the first place. (In fact, the administration has handled the law as Simms first proposed it, not how the legislature enacted it.) Simms also told the legislature that no funds were either required or budgeted for the implementation of this mandate. The truth? Budget records show the Police Training Commission received $285,810 this fiscal year, and apparently need that much again in order to get the program off the ground. This is how new million dollar bureaucracies are born.

If the draft regs don't say what police intend to do, then how would we find out? In short, we wouldn't have. Apparently they intended for the public not to learn specifics until after the restrictions take effect. (Just like with ballistic registration.) Only through court orders and our process of discovery in the lawsuit are we starting to get a picture of what they really have in mind for us: a de facto licensing system for handgun owners.

They intend to compile a new Maryland State Police database of authorized handgun purchasers, disguised as a way to check training. This is governmental overreach incarnate. The justification? "Make it easy for state police."

Here is what's coming to light: The class will only consist of a two hour video administered by troopers. (There is no evidence they began work on a video script before we filed suit.) The script is authored by someone who is apparently unfamiliar with gun handling, and most of the material upon which the script is based came directly from anti-gun groups such as the Violence Policy Center and Handgun Control. To get your regulated firearm in Maryland you must first listen to propaganda presented by the Brady Bunch with full attribution to them.

Your name and identifying information will then be used to register you in the new MSP database of authorized regulated firearm purchasers. At the same time you will be issued your ID card. The draft made available to us clearly indicates NO CARD, NO GUN. The restriction will apply to all regulated firearms, not just handguns. Want to buy an AR-15 rifle? You'll need to show you took the handgun class and present your new ID card.

The law theoretically allows someone who has taken an approved safety class elsewhere to be exempt from state training. So far the Commission has no contemplation of what other classes may suffice, and is not familiar with NRA classes. Should outside classes be accepted, then the instructor will be required to register his students. (Just imagine that: NRA certified basic firearms safety instructors having to report their students to the state police.) They may intend for someone teaching another class to just play the state's tape; that would mean that an NRA class would be required to present Brady material in order to remain legal in Maryland. If you are exempt by virtue of being an honorably discharged vet, then you may make application to get into the MSP database by supplying a copy of your DD214 and supporting information to be determined. They'll then send you your card.

The state contends it will have courses in place by sometime late fall, but at this point, we simply don't know what to believe. Many issues remain open. No sites have been determined for classes, but it appears they are planning one per county; they are investigating use of MSP barracks and Guard armories. There is no resolution on whether sites will be handicap accessible, or convenient to public transit, nor do we know at what times classes will be offered. We don't know if the class will be given in Spanish as an option. We don't know how long it will take for your registration data to be entered in the new database (a new waiting period) before you will be permitted to apply for your handgun purchase. These are all things you'd think would have been clarified in regulations.

All the evidence available so far paints a plain and simple picture: The state was lazily creating a new barrier to handgun ownership (stretching out class preparation beyond when the restriction will take effect) when it was surprised that we objected. At that point the scramble was on to slap something together to show they were doing their jobs, then repaint history as best they could in order to minimize their exposure. But some things they can't hide. One look at the draft regs will confirm they had no contemplation of exerting themselves to actually clarify ahead of time how things would work. And we now know more effort was being invested into creating the new bureaucracy than in creating a valid safety class that might just save lives.

Bottom line. Now that they are exposed, administration leadership intends to wait to the last minute, deploy a token "class" that even legislators who voted for it candidly say wasn't what they intended, then cry 'no harm, no foul' as to how they got there. I think they truly believe prospective gunowners will shrug their shoulders and be grateful to find some new ritual for buying guns, and so overlook the fact that the way this works introduces new bureaucratic machinery that is abhorrent to us. We've fought licensing proposals before in Annapolis - computer databases and ID cards to track citizens who are eligible to buy guns, instead of focusing police attention on those who break the law. Now Maryland State Police are poised to simply take that which they never won legislatively, all using the excuse of giving safety training. That's wrong, but so far the legislature casts a blind eye on the grab.

You can still send your request for the course to the Police Training Commission. Large numbers demonstrate the breadth of our community's interest and concern, but the evidence mounts that they simply don't care. Therefore now more than ever, your legislators need to hear from you. Ask them to confirm what's going on. Ask them if a fundamentally new licensing scheme can take effect without ever appearing in either law or regulation. As them why we need a General Assembly if police now make the laws. Our lawsuit is scheduled for a hearing in Rockville on August 21. We will continue to report on what we learn.

The state gets in deeper. They've done a poor job keeping stories straight. In the 23 July deposition they gave a nearly 3 inch thick stack of documents not previously made available. They thought they were making a case for how much progress they were making, as if to say 'sure we're behind, but golly, look how hard we tried.' But in the process all they did was expose how much they stonewalled our earlier attempts to find out what's going on. As a result, we filed another lawsuit, seeking punitive damages for their blatant failure to comply with state law.