Gun Owners

OK news media, every story has two sides. We have seen what convicted felons, mentally disturbed and drug addicts can do with their guns, which are stolen and unregistered to say the least. Two laws broken right there! Now, let's hear from those hundreds of legal gun owners who are alive and well today because they were armed and ready when violence entered their lives.   Over 60 million people in this country own firearms legally. Positive thinking, intelligent, hard working citizens living within their rights.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's licensing proposal that calls for a $100 fee, fingerprinting and safety training before someone can buy a handgun does not violate the U.S. Constitution, according to a legal opinion released Tuesday by Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler. The opinion came at the request of state Sen. Brian E. Frosh, a Montgomery County Democrat who chairs the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller has questioned whether the licensing provision goes too far. “Law-abiding gun owners have nothing to fear,” Gansler said in a statement, adding that “the qualifications do not allow for confiscation of guns nor could they.” The opinion, written by Dan Friedman, counsel to the General Assembly, rests on a 2008 Supreme Court decision and says the state has the authority to limit the right to possess a handgun.

Better background checks and mental health programs critical for gun control There is no argument that America has a gun problem. No matter how many studies, statistics or mass killings, there will always be individuals who find comfort and even patriotism in owning guns. Most have a primitive, juvenile, single-minded interpretation of the Second Amendment which, through many years of effort, a pro-gun lobby has managed to amend by simply never mentioning the preamble.   We have allowed this interpretation to flourish and now find ourselves with millions of humans with millions of guns, slowly killing ourselves without any constitutional constraint.

  What's next, an attack on a Sunday School class?  Quick, put armed guards in all the churches! What about malls?  Do we want armed guards at every entrance?  Is this how we want to live?   Americans are fond of saying our country is exceptional.  It's true: Twenty times more people are shot to death here than in any other country.  Ninety percent of children killed by gunfire are Americans.  Often they are doing something as innocent as going to school or watching the fireworks on New Years Eve.  About 30 people die from gunshots every day.  Is this how we want to be exceptional?

There are some truly scary gun owners out there. Reader Jason Davis asks, "Why would anyone want to restict my right to defend myself and my family by limiting access to ammunition"? ("Limiting high-capacity ammunition magazines hinders self defense," Jan. 20.) By way of example he cites two New York officers who fired 39 and 45 rounds at a suspect respectively who was "only" hit 14 times! Is it normal and rational to believe it takes 84 rounds on one person for self defense? And hitting someone 14 times is "only"?

As a legal owner of a firearm in Maryland and a registered Democrat who voted for Gov. Martin O'Malley in the last two election cycles, I was initially supportive of the push following the Newtown tragedy for new gun legislation ("O'Malley to push stricter gun limits," Jan. 15). However, as time has passed since that tragedy, I have come to see that Governor O'Malley's push for new gun legislation is an attempt to use the Newtown tragedy as a way to further his own political career and cement his standing with the base of the Democratic Party in preparation for a run for President in 2016.

Outspoken Del. Patrick L. McDonough outlined his plans for tough penalties for gun crimes as firearms owners gathered at a Bel Air shooting range as part of a national series of events to push back against proposed gun control measures. "What I'm mad as hell about is they want to take our Second Amendment rights away, but they don't care about people who are really committing the crimes," McDonough said of people proposing new gun laws. He was speaking at the Horst & McCann indoor gun range in Bel Air as part of a series of events dubbed "Gun Appreciation Day," by a Republican political consultant, and staged as a protest against new gun laws that President Barack Obama and governors including Martin O'Malley have proposed in the wake of the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school.

I am writing to express my sincere disappointment at how lawful gun owners are treated in this state. Ever year, it seems, we are subjected to increasingly draconian gun laws that are in direct conflict with the Second Amendment (which the Supreme Court has held to be an individual right for the law abiding to own and carry firearms for self defense). If I may quote a Supreme Court in Murdock v. Pennsylvania, "No State shall convert a liberty into a privilege, license it, and charge a fee therefore.

The National Rifle Association and a trade organization representing the $13.6 billion gun industry began work in Annapolis this week as the General Assembly prepared to debate some of the nation's strictest gun laws. The NRA held a meeting for about 25 lawmakers Thursday to discuss strategy in a conversation expected to intensify as early as Friday morning, when Gov. Martin O'Malley releases details of his gun control plan. On Wednesday, the National Shooting Sports Foundation registered prominent Annapolis firm Alexander & Cleaver on its behalf.

Kudos to Dan Rodricks and The Sun for your coverage of last month's tragedy involving innocent victims of the proliferation of guns in the U.S. You stepped forward with not only the horrific facts of the Newtown, Conn., school shootings but were unrelenting in your attack on the National Rifle Association and legislators who are determined to keep weapons in the hands every criminally insane young man bent on wreaking havoc in our communities....