Gun Control in MD: The Secret History (was MSI fighting G&S Circa 1973)
This battle has been going on longer than a good portion of us have been alive...
This battle has been going on longer than a good portion of us have been alive...
The Washington Post
Feb 3, 1973
Pg. A10
Md. Senate Hears Plea On Gun Law
By Edward Walsh
Washington Post Staff Writer
ANNAPOLIS, Feb. 2—Ben Petree, a physicist who appeared slightly ill at ease in the unfamiliar surroundings, told a committee of the Maryland Senate today that he lives in a generally quiet, sparsely populated area of Montgomery County and that he is afraid.
"Four of my neighbors have been slaughtered," Petree said. "The killer is still at large. Yet the administrators of this law (Maryland's hand gun control law) say that I do not properly 'apprehend danger.' "
Petree, 52, who runs a small consulting firm, lives on Old Columbia Pike north of Silver Spring, a few miles from the rural home where three men were shot to death Tuesday night. Not far away is the home of a construction worker who was shot to death Sunday. Bruce H. Shreeves, a Navy deserter, has been charged with the slayings and was apprehended in Southeast Washington last night.
Petree came here to testify in favor of an amendment to Maryland's new gun control law that state officials warned could increase severalfold the number of persons licensed to carry handguns in the state. So far 3,267 licenses have been issued and the number of new applications is expected to be about 10,000 this year even without a change in the law.
The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Robert E. Bauman (R-Upper Shore) would remove from the law a requirement that persons licensed to carry handguns first demonstrate that they need a gun as "a reasonable precaution against apprehended danger." Its effect, according to state officials, would be the automatic granting of handgun permits to any applicant meeting minimum requirements—for example, no criminal convictions.
Maryland's gun control law, enacted last year after a bitter debate, requires state permits only for carrying a handgun outside the home. It is administered by the state police, who determine if applicants have a good reason to carry a gun.
Petree told the Senate committee he has a gun collection at home and is a skilled marksman. "I shoot every Tuesday night like some people go bowling," he said.
After the slayings, he said, he went to the state police headquarters in Rockville seeking a permit to carry a gun outside the home. Petree said he told a state trooper that he, and many of his neighbors, are now afraid, but that the trooper said he did not have a sufficient reason to be granted a permit.
Donald A. Westcott, head of the state's handgun permit review board, which hears appeals of state police decisions on permit applications, said that about 20 per cent of the applicants are rejected, most because they have no substantial reason for carrying a gun.
"The question," Wescott said, "is whether this committee wants everybody in Maryland to be armed."
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