Montgomery County Bill 21-22

[Sunrise]

^^^^ THis is the way ^^^^


We do this to move them off of their X that "guns are bad". We move them away from wanting to ban all guns, and instead work with us to ban the criminals. They don't have to necessarily agree with us on firearms ownership to partner with us against criminals and crime. A lot of people here don't understand that.



It is a good feeling isn't it?


Again, it's not about changing how they vote, while that would be nice. It's about changing what they want with regards to safer communities, and when they figure out it's not guns, then we have a win. If we could get half of them to partner with us on crime and criminals, it would be a big win.


Here in lies the problem with most people here, they think that the Anti-2A crowd has to agree with us on everything, even firearms and be of the same political affiliation to partner with us.

Guess what, they don't. They just ned to understand that firearms aren't the issue, criminals are.


Again, forget about the voting booth, it has absolutely no relevance in what we want.


We don't need them to vote R, we need them to contact their elected official as a D, in sufficient numbers to get the politicians to change their mind on given legislation.

Not saying this in a bad or demeaning way, but stop making this harder than it needs to be by trying to turn them with regards to political affiliation.

We simply need to move them off of trying to further restrict lawful firearms ownership. It really is that simple.

Montgomery County Residents voted for Elrich in overwhelming numbers in spite of the surging crime.

My favorite statistic to discuss this is stolen cars in Montgomery County because it's something that's easy to track, relate to and discuss with others. It's not a "triggering" topic (rimshot).

Anyway, to the stats:
2019: There were 914 Motor Vehicle Thefts in Montgomery County.
2020: There were 1,178 Motor Vehicle Thefts in Montgomery County.
2021: There were 1,444 Motor Vehicle Thefts in Montgomery County.

2022: "As of June 6, there have been 511 auto thefts in the county this year, according to police spokesperson Carlos Cortes-Vazquez."

See: https://bethesdamagazine.com/2022/06/10/county-police-launch-program-to-help-decrease-auto-thefts/

Of course, this didn't help:

Montgomery Co. man recovers his own stolen car from DC - WTOP News

A Montgomery County, Maryland, man recovered his own stolen vehicle last Thursday after it was stolen in the early morning hours. He said he used a car app to track his wife’s 2019 Volvo to Southeast D.C.

wtop.com

"Montgomery County Police Department’s auto theft unit was disbanded earlier this year because of FY 2021 budget cuts."

Elrich defeated David Blair, who ran on a comparatively strong public safety platform in the Democrat Primary, by only 32 votes.

This means that a substantial number of Elrich voters had their cars stolen in the past few years and they simply didn't care. Having their car(s) stolen wasn't enough to make enough of them vote for someone different in their own party's Primary and voice their rejection for the failures of the incumbent. When it came to the General Election, they voted for the incumbent over a Republican challenger (Reardon Sullivan) who had a strong public safety platform as well. No surprise there.

So how does this relate here. It means that you have to find a way that's polite and relatable when discussing these issues with others that you want to inform, but you should also know that many of these people are willing to accept having their cars stolen to maintain that status quo of their party.

 

[chilipeppermaniac]

Sure.

Their Marxists just got it wrong.

The next ones that come along will never make the same mistakes!

Glad I wasn't drinking coffee or milk to spew all over my laptop screen when I read this.
Either way I see it, the Marxist enemy/enemies are well entrenched and devious and majorly well funded.

Did I say motivated as well? These last 2 things are what raise my hackles.

 

[Mark75H]

Their Marxists just got it wrong.

The next ones that come along will never make the same mistakes!

Another quotable

 

[chilipeppermaniac]

This is how I've converted all but one Anti. Recognize that 9 times out of 10, it's because they're scared of something they've never done before. I always use the analogy of how they were nervous when they were first learning to drive.

bbutch, that is a good analogy.
Also, here is an experience a few of us were privy to back about 5 years.
During a rally in DC out behind the Capitol were approximately 20-25 of the Picket Party members assembled where we could see the Capitol Bldg and several members of Congress arriving for "work"
Cummins would not acknowledge us, but one Repub Congressman from Iowa did. Despite not being our STATE's Representation, he stopped to talk to us personally. NOT LIKE MILK DUD did as he scurried inside from a safe distance.
In addition to several of us speaking to anti's, there was a woman who presented herself as an independent journalist who filmed herself with us while doing interview type questions for her videos.

To top that off, one of the most memorable encounters was a young man from South America where he told us his country was essentially a Socialist Dictatorship run by corrupt politicians. He expressed his support and totally educated point of view coming from a man who was currently in the USA that he perceives as a country with citizens who are free because of the Constitution and 2A, vs the country of his birth, where citizens are subjects of the oppressors.

My initial reaction to the the conversation with the young South American was that "HOW could a foreigner from so such a different upbringing " Get it? "

When it comes to the rights of US citizens and the need to defend 2A, how can it be that SOME foreigners see the importance of the 2A to preserve ALL our Constitutional rights when so many native USA citizens seem, dumb as a bag of rocks and are hell bent on destroying the 2A which defends all the other rights in our Constitution?

 

[SigNerd]

Still, my experience is that diehard MoCo liberals - no matter HOW reality-checked in a warm and friendly way about gun issues - can never bring themselves to vote R for county council or any state-wide office. They hear the other positions that most of them hold (on education, abortion, immigration, climate - pick one) and that's the end of that. So even when they're up to speed on the 2A stuff, they're still generally lost to us in any way that really matters: at the voting booth. So, it's back to litigation on specific topics, and using conversations like that to talk them down from the hysteria, at least on that one issue. I've brought local MoCo residents into the 2A fold, spent ammo money on waking up their senses and sensibilities, and they've been grateful ... and then they go and vote D anyway, because of course they could never sully themselves with a Cox or the like. And they're outnumbered 100:1 here even if they do stray that way.

As a fellow MoCo'er, that's why we have to help develop pro-gun Democrats (like Sen James) throughout the state, especially in areas where a Republican has no chance of winning like MoCo. As a moderate who stands against the political views of most of this forum, except when it comes to guns, it'd be good to have other options. And more importantly, in areas like MoCo pro-gun Democrats are our only viable option.

For the record, I felt morally sick for voting for Cox in the general election. There were three reasons I was able to stomach it: his only role would be to veto, he'd be unlikely to get any of his legislative priorities through, and my vote was immediately canceled out in my household. I would have actively campaigned for Schultz. MD Republicans have only themselves to blame for losing the Governor's Mansion.

 

[Sunrise]

There oughta be a law!

It was another attempted armed carjacking:

Woman shot at Wheaton Mall; suspect in custody

Police officers found a woman with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds at the scene of the shooting just outside the mall.

moco360.media

Around 6:30 p.m., Ivey sent a follow-up email stating that “at this time, I can provide that the suspect was attempting to carjack the victim when the shooting occurred.”

Under Elrich, MoCo criminals have graduated from stealing cars without people in them to stealing cars with people in them, while managing to pass laws to effectively disarm legal carriers at the same time. Congratulations!

 

[Sunrise]

As a fellow MoCo'er, that's why we have to help develop pro-gun Democrats (like Sen James) throughout the state, especially in areas where a Republican has no chance of winning like MoCo. As a moderate who stands against the political views of most of this forum, except when it comes to guns, it'd be good to have other options. And more importantly, in areas like MoCo pro-gun Democrats are our only viable option.

For the record, I felt morally sick for voting for Cox in the general election. There were three reasons I was able to stomach it: his only role would be to veto, he'd be unlikely to get any of his legislative priorities through, and my vote was immediately canceled out in my household. I would have actively campaigned for Schultz. MD Republicans have only themselves to blame for losing the Governor's Mansion.

I agree with your sentiment, but MoCo residents had every opportunity to overwhelmingly reject Elrich (and vote for a pro-public safety Blair in the Primary/General) for Elrich's failures on crime, Covid and a plethora of other issues, and they simply didn't do it. I go back to my example on stolen cars. You can steal an Elrich voter's car (perhaps several times), and they'll still pull the lever for Elrich.

I guarantee you that among those 32 voters who made up the vote differential between Elrich and Blair in the Primary that there were individuals who were victims of crime in MoCo, perhaps even a stolen car. It simply didn't matter. It wasn't enough. That truly frightens me.

 

[SigNerd]

I agree with your sentiment, but MoCo residents had every opportunity to overwhelmingly reject Elrich (and vote for a pro-public safety Blair in the Primary/General) for Elrich's failures on crime, Covid and a plethora of other issues, and they simply didn't do it. I go back to my example on stolen cars. You can steal an Elrich voter's car (perhaps several times), and they'll still pull the lever for Elrich.

I guarantee you that among those 32 voters who made up the vote differential between Elrich and Blair in the Primary that there were individuals who were victims of crime in MoCo, perhaps even a stolen car. It simply didn't matter. It wasn't enough. That truly frightens me.

Yeah, that annoyed me, too. But one way in which it would be better? If the up-county Republicans switch their registration to Democrat and start having a say in the only elections that matter in the county and generally the state.

As for that race, perhaps it's because I don't consume much traditional media and definitely no political ads where I can avoid them, but I never saw the race pivoting on the question of public safety. Only on Blair being better for business. But I'm likely not representative of the electorate because of media choices. Also I was voting against every incumbent regardless of anything else because of 21-22e.

 

[Bob A]

If I could replicate that experience every week, I'd be helping. If a thousand of us could, it might move the needle a few percent (though never enough to make even 1% of those folks vote for a different party for all of their other reasons).

Still, my experience is that diehard MoCo liberals - no matter HOW reality-checked in a warm and friendly way about gun issues - can never bring themselves to vote R for county council or any state-wide office. They hear the other positions that most of them hold (on education, abortion, immigration, climate - pick one) and that's the end of that. So even when they're up to speed on the 2A stuff, they're still generally lost to us in any way that really matters: at the voting booth. So, it's back to litigation on specific topics, and using conversations like that to talk them down from the hysteria, at least on that one issue. I've brought local MoCo residents into the 2A fold, spent ammo money on waking up their senses and sensibilities, and they've been grateful ... and then they go and vote D anyway, because of course they could never sully themselves with a Cox or the like. And they're outnumbered 100:1 here even if they do stray that way.

It's pointless and even counter-productive to convert anti-2A Progressives to a pro-firearm stance.

As you point out, nothing else in their position will change, and worse, they'll be armed and still hating us and calling us insane.

I don't need armed, rabid Progressives. The ones that merely shoot off their mouths are bad enough.

 

[Sunrise]

Yeah, that annoyed me, too. But one way in which it would be better? If the up-county Republicans switch their registration to Democrat and start having a say in the only elections that matter in the county and generally the state.

As for that race, perhaps it's because I don't consume much traditional media and definitely no political ads where I can avoid them, but I never saw the race pivoting on the question of public safety. Only on Blair being better for business. But I'm likely not representative of the electorate because of media choices. Also I was voting against every incumbent regardless of anything else because of 21-22e.

To Blair's credit he lost by 77 votes last time. Losing by 32 votes this time is an improvement.

The Washington Post endorsed Blair for 2022: Didn't matter. I guess the Post doesn't carry the weight with MoCo Democrats that it used to.

Yup. If enough MoCo Republicans had switched to being Democrats for the Primary, Elrich would have been booted out easily. You only needed 32 + 1 to do it. Damn.

You know why David Blair didn't win? Because of people like this woman who seethed venom about him and his "law and order" take:

Opinion: Candidate's 'law and order' take on crime lacks context, ignores root causes

David Blair, a candidate for Montgomery County executive, joins a long tradition of election-season “law and order” fear-mongering in his opinion piece of Nov. 13 (“Rising violence, shrinking police force, declining morale are unsustainable trends”). He cherry-picks local data, omits national...

moco360.media

Katie Stauss of Silver Spring is a member of the Silver Spring Justice Coalition Steering Committee.



Seriously.... Read what she wrote here. What a self-loathing person.

 

[Some Guy]

As a fellow MoCo'er, that's why we have to help develop pro-gun Democrats (like Sen James) throughout the state, especially in areas where a Republican has no chance of winning like MoCo. As a moderate who stands against the political views of most of this forum, except when it comes to guns, it'd be good to have other options. And more importantly, in areas like MoCo pro-gun Democrats are our only viable option.

For the record, I felt morally sick for voting for Cox in the general election. There were three reasons I was able to stomach it: his only role would be to veto, he'd be unlikely to get any of his legislative priorities through, and my vote was immediately canceled out in my household. I would have actively campaigned for Schultz. MD Republicans have only themselves to blame for losing the Governor's Mansion.

I learned last week that James is not pro 2A. She voted to advance SB-1 and other bills out of committee. The committee votes are where her voice could most be heard, and she went along with her party colleagues to advance these bills. She could have chosen to say no and also convince one or two of her democrat colleagues to also vote no. She did not. She then proceeded to fruitlessly vote yes on several pro-2a amendments on the floor to try to maintain her standing. It was clearly a shell game for her. She is not pro-2A in my opinion.

 

[esqappellate]

I learned last week that James is not pro 2A. She voted to advance SB-1 and other bills out of committee. The committee votes are where her voice could most be heard, and she went along with her party colleagues to advance these bills. She could have chosen to say no and also convince one or two of her democrat colleagues to also vote no. She did not. She then proceeded to fruitlessly vote yes on several pro-2a amendments on the floor to try to maintain her standing. It was clearly a shell game for her. She is not pro-2A in my opinion.

she is better than a rabid anti, by far. SB1 was heavily amended in jpr to make it much less worse than it was (still a turd but less stinky). She helped. I will take all the help I can get.

 

[coinboy]

It's pointless and even counter-productive to convert anti-2A Progressives to a pro-firearm stance.

As you point out, nothing else in their position will change, and worse, they'll be armed and still hating us and calling us insane.

I don't need armed, rabid Progressives. The ones that merely shoot off their mouths are bad enough.

I disagree.

I personally think the more gun owners in the state and country the better. All that has to happen is that their right is restricted or a threat of jail for a product that they also legally bought with a new law. It puts us on the same side.

Also, it's very hard for a democratic gun owner to accept the idea of guns that their party pushes, such as there are no background checks, the gun show loophole, someone shouldn't have hundreds of rounds of ammo, so-called high cap mags, and so-called Assault Weapons. They will start to see that they are being misled if not outright lied to. It could make them question the other lies of their own party.

Some democrats are leaving the party and some are leaving specifically because of gun control. Others are leaving when they realize what was the original purpose of gun control.

 

[SigNerd]

I learned last week that James is not pro 2A. She voted to advance SB-1 and other bills out of committee. The committee votes are where her voice could most be heard, and she went along with her party colleagues to advance these bills. She could have chosen to say no and also convince one or two of her democrat colleagues to also vote no. She did not. She then proceeded to fruitlessly vote yes on several pro-2a amendments on the floor to try to maintain her standing. It was clearly a shell game for her. She is not pro-2A in my opinion.

I view her yes vote as strategic, she was preserving her influence for the purpose of making friendly floor amendments. Note that she also voted for Folden's amendment on alcohol consumption that the Senate barely rejected. I also doubt we would have ended up with the 3rd draft (which, while still crap, is far better than the 1st or 2nd) if not for her strong opposition in the bill hearing (though none of that is to take away from the immense work done by MSI, I just think pressure within the party in the committee probably smoothed things quite a bit for the changes to go through).

 

[PapiBarcelona]

Would it have made sense to have a Republican in James' seat or nah? She only won last November by like, less than 600 votes out 45,000ish total votes.

Harford county route 40/I-95 area and a little Baltimore county I guess.

She was a delegate I think, voted for SB281 in 2013, got voted out and hasn't been back until Cassily decided he wanted to be the county executive

 

[SigNerd]

Would it have made sense to have a Republican in James' seat or nah? She only won last November by like, less than 600 votes out 45,000ish total votes.

Harford county route 40/I-95 area and a little Baltimore county I guess.

The committee membership would almost certainly have still been 8-3, but you'd just have 8 anti-gun democrats.

 

[PapiBarcelona]

In other words, it would be a nice pipe dream for all the folks serving as a MGA democrat to have her viewpoints other than "I'm going to vote for it and hope it's worked out" shtick

 

[PapiBarcelona]

I did watch some of the SB1 hearing, I think James asked more than once about getting some text/history/tradition info on all the sensitive places.

Of course the answer to that has been "Bruh.....uhhh, ummm" in just about everywhere so far LOL

Even the guy at the HQL hearing had like a 5 second pause before he answered "we couldn't find any" after being asked again about it

 

[jcutonilli]

Would it have made sense to have a Republican in James' seat or nah? She only won last November by like, less than 600 votes out 45,000ish total votes.

Harford county route 40/I-95 area and a little Baltimore county I guess.

She was a delegate I think, voted for SB281 in 2013, got voted out and hasn't been back until Cassily decided he wanted to be the county executive

Technically she voted against SB281 in 2013

Search - Legislation

 

[lazarus]

I agree with your sentiment, but MoCo residents had every opportunity to overwhelmingly reject Elrich (and vote for a pro-public safety Blair in the Primary/General) for Elrich's failures on crime, Covid and a plethora of other issues, and they simply didn't do it. I go back to my example on stolen cars. You can steal an Elrich voter's car (perhaps several times), and they'll still pull the lever for Elrich.

I guarantee you that among those 32 voters who made up the vote differential between Elrich and Blair in the Primary that there were individuals who were victims of crime in MoCo, perhaps even a stolen car. It simply didn't matter. It wasn't enough. That truly frightens me.

I understand the sentiment, but the crime rate is only about 3000 per 100k residents. That is ALL crimes, from minor to horrible. I think the only thing not included are traffic citations. And plenty of repeat victims. But can include simple trespass, shoplifting, etc. Very minor crimes outweigh things like car theft or robberies or shootings by a ton.

Of those 32, odds were middling that one of them in the last year might have suffered a minor crime unless they were a business owner (in which case their risk goes up a lot). A serious crime, odds are tiny. 800k residents. So only about a 1 in 8 chance one of them suffered even a minor crime. Probably about 1 in 80 any one of those 32 suffered a more serious crime like a B&E or aggravated assault or grand theft auto.

Crimes up, but it isn't like most people are getting victimized still. Even if you spread that over years.