Details of the bill:
Synopsis: "Prohibiting the sale, rental, or transfer of a regulated firearm, rifle, or shotgun to a person who is on the Terrorist Watchlist maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and prohibiting the Secretary of State Police from issuing a permit to carry, wear, or transport a handgun to a person listed on the Terrorist Watchlist."
House hearing on Friday 2/26 (this week) at 1 PM. Senate hearing not scheduled but may be on Tuesday 3/15.
Text of the bill is here and further details are located here.
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Suggested talking points:
* I'd start by acknowledging we all want to keep guns out of the hands of true bad guys. No one wants terrorists to have guns or get a carry permit. The point is how do we differentiate between true bad guys and false positives, and do so in a lawful way that respects civil liberties?
* False positives are well known and include the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Wikipedia has a long documented list of people incorrectly on the No Fly List here. These include many kids under the ages of 5, ACLU lawyers, many who have served honorably in the US Armed Forces, one Senator (Ted Kennedy D-MA) and two Congressmen (John Lewis D-GA & Don Young R-AK), Air Marshall Service members on the very flights they were assigned to protect (!), 53 nonviolent political activists incorrectly classified as terrorists by the Maryland State Police (they were death penalty and Iraq War opponents), well-known journalists & actors, etc.
* It is difficult even for people of the statute of Senator Ted Kennedy to get removed. Even after appealing directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security it took 3 weeks to clear his name. What about normal folks without that access? As Senator Kennedy said of "ordinary citizens": ""How are they going to be able to get to be treated fairly and not have their rights abused?"
* Ask MD GA Members how they plan to address this known and serious problem. What amendments will they make to the bill?
* Once a person in MD is falsely denied access to firearms because of this bill, what is the Due Process by which a person can have his or her rights restored? The Federal Government has a DHS Traveler Redress Inquire Program. Why was a similar process not included in this bill?
* That Restoration process is just entirely lacking in the bill as written. Ask them what changes they will make in the bill to allow errors to be corrected.
* The ACLU has expressed grave Civil Liberties concerns about these lists and how they're used. They wrote: "The government is adding people to its already bloated watchlisting system at breakneck pace, and it’s still hungry for more. ... Those documents vindicate our concerns and warnings about a massive, virtually standardless government watchlisting scheme that ensnares innocent people and encourages racial and religious profiling. The documents confirm what we have long suspected: It doesn’t take much to get yourself on a terrorist watchlist. The government’s recently leaked Watchlisting Guidance starts with a poorly defined “reasonable suspicion” standard and then subjects it to so many exceptions and caveats as to render it virtually toothless. The unsurprising result, as is clear from these documents, is a set of watchlists experiencing explosive growth."
* Any accused person has the Constitutional right to hear the evidence against him or her, to present evidence that he or she is wrongly accused, and to be adjudicated accordingly. That whole structure is missing in this bill.
* There are many Federal lawsuits working their way through the courts about this program at the national level related to Due Process and Religious Discrimination. Ask them: Is Maryland prepared to litigate similar cases and to pay damages for denial of civil rights?
* The Terrorist Watch List contains 400,000 unique names, 1600 are added daily, 600 names are removed daily, and 4800 are modified by the intelligence community. President Obama's own Justice Department of Inspector General has criticized the list for frequent errors and being slow to correct. An OIG audit found a 38% error rate in their tested sample. Other examples of bad data in this list can be found here.
-----
How to help:
* Visit Annapolis in person. Show up Friday and testify in the House Judiciary Committee hearing room. Sign up by noon to testify starting at 1 PM. If you want to provide written testimony, by 11 AM leave 30 copies for the House (20 for the Senate on a subsequent date). Then go speak with your delegates after the hearings. If you don't know who represents you in the GA, you can find that out here.
* Make phone calls. Once you know who represents you, the entire list of GA legislators can be found here. Links off of that page will lead you to each legislator, to include his or her phone & fax numbers, office locations, individual email addresses, and other contact information.
* Email your legislators, or even the entire General Assembly. There are convenient emailers at AGC or also the Civic Action email system. You don't need to cover all of the points I suggested above. Pick one, or two. Something in their inbox is better than nothing. In aggregate, we'll cover it all, but everyone has to do their part.
Re: emails, I'd recommend you pick one bad bill a night and send it off. The drip drip drip of all of us flooding the GA's email servers every day and every week is much more effective than a one size fits all massive blast you only do once. You don't have to be wordy. Pick a bill, make your points, then come back the next night and do it again with another bill. When you've cycled through them all, have people you know believe the same way join in to do it too. Which leads me to:
* Get your wife involved, your kids involved, your neighbors, your friends, your work colleagues who feel the same way, the folks on your social media accounts, etc. At the moment I'm not seeing the passion we need to stop this and other bad bills; we all need to do more.
* I'd also suggest on all of those emails, calls, etc. that you contact Governor Larry Hogan as well, and ask him to veto the bill if it passes, stating the reasons why you believe he should do that. You can find his contact information here.
By all means use any or all of the information above that you find helpful, but of course put it in your own words. This should be personalized to you otherwise cut & pastes will be recognized for what they are and ignored. It doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to be eloquent - just speak from your heart even if brief and that will make a difference.
-----
Final comment: This will be an interesting bill to watch. My own personal opinion is that this will be one of the toughest to stop. The sound bite is going to be: we're gun nuts who are so extreme - even to the point of allowing terrorists to have guns. We'll have to work hard to counter that misperception, and I believe it starts with showing real flaws in the bill, flaws that will matter to them. Ask them to fix it, to amend the bill in a way that will respect civil liberties and due process. Hopefully that's exactly what they'll do, or failing that kill the whole thing as unfixable.
Synopsis: "Prohibiting the sale, rental, or transfer of a regulated firearm, rifle, or shotgun to a person who is on the Terrorist Watchlist maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and prohibiting the Secretary of State Police from issuing a permit to carry, wear, or transport a handgun to a person listed on the Terrorist Watchlist."
House hearing on Friday 2/26 (this week) at 1 PM. Senate hearing not scheduled but may be on Tuesday 3/15.
Text of the bill is here and further details are located here.
-----
Suggested talking points:
* I'd start by acknowledging we all want to keep guns out of the hands of true bad guys. No one wants terrorists to have guns or get a carry permit. The point is how do we differentiate between true bad guys and false positives, and do so in a lawful way that respects civil liberties?
* False positives are well known and include the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Wikipedia has a long documented list of people incorrectly on the No Fly List here. These include many kids under the ages of 5, ACLU lawyers, many who have served honorably in the US Armed Forces, one Senator (Ted Kennedy D-MA) and two Congressmen (John Lewis D-GA & Don Young R-AK), Air Marshall Service members on the very flights they were assigned to protect (!), 53 nonviolent political activists incorrectly classified as terrorists by the Maryland State Police (they were death penalty and Iraq War opponents), well-known journalists & actors, etc.
* It is difficult even for people of the statute of Senator Ted Kennedy to get removed. Even after appealing directly to the Secretary of Homeland Security it took 3 weeks to clear his name. What about normal folks without that access? As Senator Kennedy said of "ordinary citizens": ""How are they going to be able to get to be treated fairly and not have their rights abused?"
* Ask MD GA Members how they plan to address this known and serious problem. What amendments will they make to the bill?
* Once a person in MD is falsely denied access to firearms because of this bill, what is the Due Process by which a person can have his or her rights restored? The Federal Government has a DHS Traveler Redress Inquire Program. Why was a similar process not included in this bill?
* That Restoration process is just entirely lacking in the bill as written. Ask them what changes they will make in the bill to allow errors to be corrected.
* The ACLU has expressed grave Civil Liberties concerns about these lists and how they're used. They wrote: "The government is adding people to its already bloated watchlisting system at breakneck pace, and it’s still hungry for more. ... Those documents vindicate our concerns and warnings about a massive, virtually standardless government watchlisting scheme that ensnares innocent people and encourages racial and religious profiling. The documents confirm what we have long suspected: It doesn’t take much to get yourself on a terrorist watchlist. The government’s recently leaked Watchlisting Guidance starts with a poorly defined “reasonable suspicion” standard and then subjects it to so many exceptions and caveats as to render it virtually toothless. The unsurprising result, as is clear from these documents, is a set of watchlists experiencing explosive growth."
* Any accused person has the Constitutional right to hear the evidence against him or her, to present evidence that he or she is wrongly accused, and to be adjudicated accordingly. That whole structure is missing in this bill.
* There are many Federal lawsuits working their way through the courts about this program at the national level related to Due Process and Religious Discrimination. Ask them: Is Maryland prepared to litigate similar cases and to pay damages for denial of civil rights?
* The Terrorist Watch List contains 400,000 unique names, 1600 are added daily, 600 names are removed daily, and 4800 are modified by the intelligence community. President Obama's own Justice Department of Inspector General has criticized the list for frequent errors and being slow to correct. An OIG audit found a 38% error rate in their tested sample. Other examples of bad data in this list can be found here.
-----
How to help:
* Visit Annapolis in person. Show up Friday and testify in the House Judiciary Committee hearing room. Sign up by noon to testify starting at 1 PM. If you want to provide written testimony, by 11 AM leave 30 copies for the House (20 for the Senate on a subsequent date). Then go speak with your delegates after the hearings. If you don't know who represents you in the GA, you can find that out here.
* Make phone calls. Once you know who represents you, the entire list of GA legislators can be found here. Links off of that page will lead you to each legislator, to include his or her phone & fax numbers, office locations, individual email addresses, and other contact information.
* Email your legislators, or even the entire General Assembly. There are convenient emailers at AGC or also the Civic Action email system. You don't need to cover all of the points I suggested above. Pick one, or two. Something in their inbox is better than nothing. In aggregate, we'll cover it all, but everyone has to do their part.
Re: emails, I'd recommend you pick one bad bill a night and send it off. The drip drip drip of all of us flooding the GA's email servers every day and every week is much more effective than a one size fits all massive blast you only do once. You don't have to be wordy. Pick a bill, make your points, then come back the next night and do it again with another bill. When you've cycled through them all, have people you know believe the same way join in to do it too. Which leads me to:
* Get your wife involved, your kids involved, your neighbors, your friends, your work colleagues who feel the same way, the folks on your social media accounts, etc. At the moment I'm not seeing the passion we need to stop this and other bad bills; we all need to do more.
* I'd also suggest on all of those emails, calls, etc. that you contact Governor Larry Hogan as well, and ask him to veto the bill if it passes, stating the reasons why you believe he should do that. You can find his contact information here.
By all means use any or all of the information above that you find helpful, but of course put it in your own words. This should be personalized to you otherwise cut & pastes will be recognized for what they are and ignored. It doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to be eloquent - just speak from your heart even if brief and that will make a difference.
-----
Final comment: This will be an interesting bill to watch. My own personal opinion is that this will be one of the toughest to stop. The sound bite is going to be: we're gun nuts who are so extreme - even to the point of allowing terrorists to have guns. We'll have to work hard to counter that misperception, and I believe it starts with showing real flaws in the bill, flaws that will matter to them. Ask them to fix it, to amend the bill in a way that will respect civil liberties and due process. Hopefully that's exactly what they'll do, or failing that kill the whole thing as unfixable.
