MSI fighting G&S circa 1973.

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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Washington Post
MARCH 31, 1966
PAGE A20

Within Range (Editorial)

On the plus side of the Maryland Assembly's spotty record was last-minute enactment of a statewide pistol control bill. The Free State is no longer a part of the frontier; and there is no real need for its residents to have their six-shooters at hand constantly for self-protection. It will still be fairly easy to get shot in Maryland but perhaps not quite as common as in the past.

Every law-abiding, responsible adult who wants a pistol will still be able to buy one without difficulty in Maryland. The only inconvenience to which the new legislation will subject him is a brief waiting period before taking possession of his purchase. Thus, those who want a handgun for target shooting can be fully accommodated; those who think it profitable to shoot it out with marauders or other desperadoes can keep a whole arsenal around the house; and anybody who considers it desirable to have a handgun handy for the kiddies to show off to one another or play with will not have his liberty infringed in any way—except for that waiting period. And, of course, if the red tape involved in buying a handgun in Maryland seems too onerous, Marylanders, like all other Americans, are still free to write off for a weapon to that Chicago mail order house which so satisfactorily supplied the needs of the late Lee Harvey Oswald.

Nevertheless, when all this has been said, the fact remains that an element of rationality has been introduced in Maryland. We congratulate the Assembly on its imperviousness to the frenzy of the gun lobby. Perhaps the Congress of the United States will soon be ready to display some of the same good sense.

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Schipperke said:

Had no idea the waiting period scheme was that old.

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dblas said:

Can you provide links for those please?

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dblas said:

Can you provide links for those please?

TIA

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The Washington Post
Jul 3, 1968
Page A11

Gun Registration, Licensing Asked in Montgomery Bill
By Gail Bensinger
Washington Post Staff Writer

The Montgomery County Council introduced a gun control law yesterday that would require registration of all gun owners and licensing of all shotguns and rifles.

The ordinance is based on a model law drawn up by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) for all area jurisdictions. Handgun licensing was omitted from the proposed Montgomery ordinance because such controls are included in a State law.

The Council set public hearings for Sept. 4 and 5 on the new laws. Council President William W. Greenhalgh said that if Congress passes national gun control laws before then, the County ordinance may be changed to accommodate the Federal law or dropped altogether if the national law is broad enough.

The ordinance would establish "fire arm owners' registration cards" to identify gun owners.

Prohibited from owning guns would be felons, fugitives from justice, alcoholics, narcotic addicts and former mental patients. The age limit would be 21, but youths 18 or older could buy long guns with parental permission.

Later, the County's Range Approval Committee appeared before the Council to state that public shooting ranges rather than an extension of the area in which shooting is prohibited would reduce gun accidents.

Committee Chairman William D. Aud also suggested setting up a program of instructions of firearm safely in public schools.

Committee members endorsed the concept of mandatory training or demonstration of competence for everyone who owns a gun. Public training facilities do not exist now, Aud asserted.

John P. Hewitt, director of Parks for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, said that his agency is considering a series of public ranges in the County but could not put them into operation for at least two years.

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The Washington Post
Feb 22, 1968
Page B4

State Registration Of Rifles Is Pushed
By a Washington Post Staff Writer

ANNAPOLIS, Feb. 21—A Washington police captain urged the General Assembly today to extend Maryland's firearms registration law to rifles and shotguns.

Capt. Ernst Winter, commanding officer of the Washington Robbery Squad, told the House Judiciary Committee that 20 per cent of the more than 300 armed robberies reported in Washington each month involved rifles, shotguns and knives.

Winter, who lives in Silver Spring and said he was speaking as a Montgomery County resident rather than as a police official, said that “if a man can pay $50 for a rifle, he can pay $1 to register it.”

But the police captain and three other witnesses who spoke in favor of strengthening the law were heavily outnumbered by the more than 20 opponents of the proposal.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Milton A. Reckord, a former Maryland adjutant general, representing the Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore, led the opposition to the gun control measures before the committee.

“In order to reach the crooks we discommode all the honest people,” Reckord said. Registration of weapons is “inconvenient,” he said.

Two separate gun control bills are before the House committee. One, by Del. Richard Rynd (D-Baltimore County), would require persons buying handguns from private individuals to register their purchases. Existing law applies only to pistols and revolvers bought through dealers.

A second measure, by Del. Leonard S. Blondes (D-Montgomery), would extend the law to rifles and shotguns.

Today, Blondes angrily rebutted a suggestion by Reckord that in order to insure passage of the 1966 law now on the books he had promised not to seek to extend the statute.

“One of every three armed robberies in Montgomery County involves rifles or shotguns,” Blondes flared. “I don't make deals with people's lives.”

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GENERAL RECKORD. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen: My name is Gen. Milton A. Reckord. I am the adjutant general of Maryland and the executive officer of the National Rifle Association of America.

MR. DICKINSON. Will you please give us your address?

GENERAL RECKORD. I have an address at the capitol in Annapolis, as the adjutant general of Maryland, and in the Barr Building, Washington, D.C, as the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association of America.

We have asked to be heard on H.R. 9066 because of the fact that for many years our association has been interested in legislation of this type.

THE CHAIRMAN. What is your position with the National Rifle Association?

GENERAL RECKORD. I am the executive officer, the executive vice president, the active head of the National Rifle Association.

MR. TREADWAY. May I ask, Mr. Adjutant General, whether you are appearing as an official of that association or as adjutant general of your State? You seem to hold two positions. How are you appearing here, in what capacity?

GENERAL RECKORD. I am appearing in both capacities.

MR. TREADWAY. That is what I wanted to know. Thank you.

GENERAL RECKORD. Because I am the chairman of the legislative committee of the Adjutants General Association of the United States.

THE CHAIRMAN. In that connection, are you appearing in opposition to or in favor of the bill?

GENERAL RECKORD. We are in opposition to many of the provisions of this bill.

MR. HILL. You are representing the State of Maryland as well as the National Rifle Association in this hearing?

GENERAL RECKORD. I cannot say that I am representing the State of Maryland, because I have not been directed by the Governor to come here to present the views of the State. I am representing the Association of Adjutants General of all of the States, as I am the chairman of the legislative committee of that body.

MR. HILL. Have you been directed by that organization to appear here?

GENERAL RECKORD. Yes, sir.

THE CHAIRMAN. You say you appear in the capacity of adjutant general of the State of Maryland?

GENERAL RECKORD. I am the adjutant general of the State of Maryland and chairman of the Legislation Committee of the Adjutants General Association.

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The Washington Post
Sep 4, 1968
Page A1

Gun Control Rejected by Pr. George's
By Douglas Watson
Washington Post Staff Writer

The Prince George's County Board of Commissioners unanimously rejected proposed gun-control legislation yesterday after 250 opponents of the measures appeared to protest them.

“It seems to me there isn't much purpose in going much further with the hearing,” Commission Chairman Gladys N. Spellman said after only two persons in the audience spoke in favor of the proposals.

The hearing was the first in suburban Washington, with others to be held today, Thursday and Friday in Montgomery County.

Washington's City Council adopted a far-reaching gun-control law in July but its action has yet to be followed in any of the suburbs.

Walter A. Scheiber, executive director of the Metropolitan Area Council of Governments, was one of the two speakers who favored the measures. He termed yesterday's action a blow to bringing uniform laws on licensing and registration to the Washington area.

Many of the opponents in the audience apparently had been recruited during the last week by a group calling itself the Prince George's Citizens for Just Firearms Legislation.

More than 60 persons had signed up to speak against the proposals when Mrs. Spellman stopped the hearing. Commissioner M. Bayne Brooke's motion to kill the ordinances then was passed without opposition.

When yesterday's hearing was originally scheduled, four of the five Commissioners said they were unhappy with the drafts, patterned after model ordinances prepared by the Council of Governments.

Only Mrs. Spellman spoke favorably of the measures when they were before the Board in July. “We're not going to end all crime but we're attempting to meet part of the problem. I just think we ought to do as much as we can,” she said then.

After yesterday's hearing she said the Commissioners had received hundreds of letters and telephone calls against gun controls and had heard hardly a word for them. “The average citizen ought to be able to pick up a pen and say, 'I'm for this legislation,' but nobody did,” she said.

Two parallel measures were debated yesterday. One would require that all firearms be registered with the County police. The other would require persons owning or possessing rifles and shotguns to obtain a license from the police.

Waiting Period

Present Maryland law requires a seven-day waiting period for persons buying handguns from dealers and it bans sale to those convicted of violent crimes or otherwise found to be incompetent. The sale of rifles and shotguns is not governed by state law.

The registration proposal generally would have applied to all firearms but pneumatic guns, spring guns and b-b guns, and to all persons but Police, military personnel, nonresident hunters and licensed gun dealers.

Under it, both new and old guns have to be registered by their owners within 60 days or be subject to confiscation by the police.

Licensing Procedure

Under the other measure, persons possessing rifles and shotguns would have been required to obtain licenses from the County chief of police. Applicants would be denied licenses if it was learned they had been convicted or were under indictment for violent crimes, were fugitives, habitual drunkards, drug addicts, minors, or had spent more than 30 consecutive days in a mental institution. Persons between 18 and 21 could possess long guns, however, with parental approval.

The licensing measure would not have affected owners of handguns, because the State law prohibits local legislation on the possession of pistols and revolvers.

Scheiber, in his testimony, said, “A gun control law does not take guns away from anyone” competent to possess one. He cited a statement by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover that “easy accessibility of firearms is responsible for many killings.”

Discourage Hunting.

Charles Garner, representing Maryland's Department of Game and Inland Fish, then spoke against the ordinances, saying they would discourage hunting.

Bruce Bourman of the Greenbelt Peace Committee said that gun control could cut the death toll from firearms accidents and suicides and noted that 96 per cent of the Nation's slain policemen are killed by guns.

This ended the formal testimony.

Mrs. Spellman said the Commissioners would favor State legislation imposing a mandatory minimum five-year sentence on persons who used firearms in committing crimes.

The Montgomery County hearings will be held at 8 p.m. at Julius West Jr. High School in Rockville today and Thursday and at 2:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers Friday.

The proposed gun-control legislation in Fairfax and Arlington counties has been opposed by legal officials in both counties, who have said that the jurisdictions lack authority from the state to enact such legislation.

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The Washington Post
Jul 19, 1971
Page C1

Gun Control Has Become Forgotten Issue in Area
By Kenneth Bredemeier
Washington Post Staff Writer

Silence and neglect have replaced the strident public demand for gun control in suburban Washington that followed the assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King three years ago.

In Montgomery County, Idamae Garrott told a reporter recently that no one has mentioned the subject to her since she was elected president of the County Council last December.

Fairfax County Attorney Donald C, Stevens said that a Fairfax gun proposal, sent to his office for study two years ago by the Board of Supervisors, is still "fermenting, maturing."

In Prince George's, as in Montgomery, tough control ordinances were rejected by elected county officials, After the defeat of the Prince George's proposals, a committee was created to further study local gun laws —and then no one was appointed to the panel, according to Francis B. Francois, a County Council member and president of the Metropolitan Area Council of Governments.

In 1968, COG proposed ordinances for the registration of guns and the licensing of gun owners, but the 15 jurisdictions belonging to COG, only Washington passed a new law.

Under the District of Columbia's gun control ordinance, metropolitan police say they have registered 36,579 guns in the last two years and fingerprinted their owners, a group that includes senators, congressmen, judges and government bureaucrats.

Legal difficulties and the ticklish political repercussions that surround gun control laws are cited by local suburban officials as the reasons for the defeat of proposed laws and the subsequent inactivity.

Fairfax County Attorney Stevens, in a deadpan manner, estimated that the "earliest possible date" the county's gun control proposals could be sent to the supervisors would be in December—well after this year's board elections. Thousands of people turned up at various public hearings in 1968 and 1969 to lodge vehement protests against gun controls.

Fairfax is the only jurisdiction in the Washington area where a proposed gun control ordinance is theoretically still pending, but even there, Supervisor Harold O. Miller says, "It's a dead issue."

Supervisor Harriet F, Bradley chaired a study group that drew up the proposal that would have made it a crime for gun dealers to knowingly sell firearms to felons, drug addicts, drunkards, incompetents and, in some cases, minors, or for such persons to possess firearms.

"I haven't even thought of it," she said when asked about it last week. "It seems to me the system we have is working pretty well."

State and local police in most suburban jurisdictions regularly investigate persons who want to purchase handguns.

Under a Maryland law, prospective handgun purchasers fill out an application. Sales are forbidden to drug addicts, habitual drunkards, those who have been convicted of crimes of violence, fugitives from justice, those confined in mental hospitals for at least 30 consecutive days, and those who are under indictment. Police must complete their check within seven days.

In Montgomery, for example, state police investigate about 2,800 prospective handgun purchasers annually and only about 1 of 2 per cent are rejected, according to Sgt. Tom Collins.

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Doctor_M said:

Yep, the waiting period has been around for a long time, but until the 1990s you could still do a F-T-F transfer of handguns, so it didn't have the same weight that it does now. Now there are no other options but to wait.

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