(May 18, 2001) What do we say to a governor who does the right thing for the wrong reasons? I guess we say thanks!

In May we reported on the so-called "gun safety training" bill that overwhelmingly passed the General Assembly, a measure we strongly opposed as giving the Sarah Brady crowd a mandate to cleanse the notion of lawful firearm ownership from Maryland culture. Schools in the population centers of the state - already in the control of teacher unions strongly beholding to an administration that detests guns and gunowners alike - would institutionalize their message of hate in every classroom.

Little did we know just how much Governor Glendening hates guns. As the constitutional deadline approached, he vetoed the bill, declaring that the possibility of even one county school system adopting a balanced firearm safety message was too much for him to bear. If it's not exclusively to promote gun control, then Parris won't back it.

Thank you, Governor, for validating everything we said.

The debate will surely rise again next session, with one crowd pushing to override Glendening's veto (it would be the first in his many years in office) and others intent on handing up a bill that doesn't concern itself with any icky message of balance. But with the administration's true colors shown yet again, it will be harder for legislators in a middle ground to delude themselves that the debate has anything to do with safety. It's about gun avoidance, with an underlying philosophy that parents ought not be making decisions about their children. That isn't an unalloyed message that our future can live with.