HPRB July 8, 2019 Meeting Thread

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  • Tungsten

    Ultimate Member
    Jan 1, 2012
    7,231
    Elkridge, Leftistan
    Does anyone know how to join the MSP? It is sounding like that may be a more realistic pathway to obtaining a permit from the crown.
     

    basscat

    Ultimate Member
    Jul 23, 2012
    1,390
    Hogan really picked a fine crew didnt he? He might as well just signed the damn bill.
     

    Deep Lurker

    Ultimate Member
    Patriot Picket
    Mar 22, 2019
    2,356

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    Not_an_outlaw

    Ultimate Member
    Patriot Picket
    Jan 26, 2013
    4,679
    Prince Frederick, MD
    Threats have to be specific. Board member asked about restrictions of a previous case (not sure) if she has any firearms restrictions as a result of the case being dropped.
     

    welder516

    Deplorable Welder
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 8, 2013
    27,307
    Underground Bunker
    When Hogan runs for president in 2024 he will fix all this , he just needs to beat Donald Trump Jr or Eric Trump . for the top spot in the GOP .
     

    Deep Lurker

    Ultimate Member
    Patriot Picket
    Mar 22, 2019
    2,356
    If the Minutes of the HPRB hearing, a “quasi-judicial” public function, must contain the “three types of information” listed below that are required to be publicly disclosed (and recorded in the Minutes of the hearing), then why is this Board conducting secret votes in open session?
     

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    Hattie

    Active Member
    Sep 18, 2012
    178
    The language of the Md. Code provides:

    "It is essential to the maintenance of a democratic society that, except in special and appropriate circumstances:
    (1) public business be conducted openly and publicly; and
    (2) the public be allowed to observe:
    (i) the performance of public officials; and
    (ii) the deliberations and decisions that the making of public policy involves."

    Md Code, General Provisions, sec. 3-102(a).

    "Deliberations and decisions" would seem to include not just the aggregate results of the votes leading to a given decision, but also the individual votes themselves.

    This interpretation is consistent with Md. Code, General Provisions, sec. 3-301: "Except as otherwise expressly provided in this title, a public body shall meet in open session," as well as the language of the Code placing strict limitations on the ability to conduct activity in closed session. See, e.g., Md. Code, General Provisions, sec. 3-305.
     

    Deep Lurker

    Ultimate Member
    Patriot Picket
    Mar 22, 2019
    2,356
    The “Summary” at the beginning of Chapter 6 of the Open Meetings Act Manual, indicates that the “individual” votes of the members of the public body are to be recorded in the Minutes; in this example, legislators voting on laws.

    Why would the members of the HPRB, voting in public session under the OMA, and required to report the proceedings and voting outcome (see post #131 above) in the hearing Minutes of the HPRB, not reveal their “individual” votes at the time the votes are taken?
     

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    Deep Lurker

    Ultimate Member
    Patriot Picket
    Mar 22, 2019
    2,356
    HPRB: Please study this English History to understand why law-abiding MD citizens, since 1789, don’t play dat.

    “The Star Chamber (Latin: Camera stellata) was an English court which sat at the royal Palace of Westminster, from the late 15th century to the mid-17th century (c. 1641), and was composed of Privy Counsellors and common-law judges, to supplement the judicial activities of the common-law and equity courts in civil and criminal matters. The Star Chamber was originally established to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against socially and politically prominent people so powerful that ordinary courts would probably hesitate to convict them of their crimes. However, it became synonymous with social and political oppression through the arbitrary use and abuse of the power it wielded.”

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber

    “A document (below, right) of 1504 showing King Henry VII sitting in the Star Chamber and receiving William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, and clerics associated with Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral, as well as the Mayor of London.”
     

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    Hattie

    Active Member
    Sep 18, 2012
    178
    Judge Smalkin's apparently multiple references to Snowden and Scherr suggest that he may have received (other than in open session or an announced closed session) either "legal advice" from the Attorney General's office and/or an ex parte communication on the same matter from MSP (again outside either an open session or an announced closed session).

    Even assuming the Judge's view on the applicable law is one he formed after independent research on his own, any such research could not have failed to disclose the governing authority provided by the Fourth Circuit's decision in Woollard v Gallagher, 712 F.3d 865 (4th Cir. 2013), wherein the Court held that a lower court finding that Maryland's "good and substantial" requirement was unconstitutional must be reversed because Maryland law allows for wear and carry permits based on "palpable need." The "palpable need" standard thus is the only thing standing between the relevant Maryland law and unconstitutionality, and renders the application of the outdated (and unsupportable) Snowden and Scherr standards patently erroneous. An independent reason why neither Snowden nor Scherr can properly be applied is that neither construed the language of the present statute, and both relied on a "collective right" interpretation of the Second Amendment that the Supreme Court specifically rejected in the Heller and McDonald cases.

    One can only hope that any attorney appearing before the HPRB would seek to educate the Judge and other Board members on these issues as well as matters pertaining to the Open Meetings Act.
     

    Stoveman

    TV Personality
    Patriot Picket
    Sep 2, 2013
    27,990
    Cuba on the Chesapeake
    Judge Smalkin's apparently multiple references to Snowden and Scherr suggest that he may have received (other than in open session or an announced closed session) either "legal advice" from the Attorney General's office and/or an ex parte communication on the same matter from MSP (again outside either an open session or an announced closed session).

    Even assuming the Judge's view on the applicable law is one he formed after independent research on his own, any such research could not have failed to disclose the governing authority provided by the Fourth Circuit's decision in Woollard v Gallagher, 712 F.3d 865 (4th Cir. 2013), wherein the Court held that a lower court finding that Maryland's "good and substantial" requirement was unconstitutional must be reversed because Maryland law allows for wear and carry permits based on "palpable need." The "palpable need" standard thus is the only thing standing between the relevant Maryland law and unconstitutionality, and renders the application of the outdated (and unsupportable) Snowden and Scherr standards patently erroneous. An independent reason why neither Snowden nor Scherr can properly be applied is that neither construed the language of the present statute, and both relied on a "collective right" interpretation of the Second Amendment that the Supreme Court specifically rejected in the Heller and McDonald cases.

    One can only hope that any attorney appearing before the HPRB would seek to educate the Judge and other Board members on these issues as well as matters pertaining to the Open Meetings Act.



    Great summation, I will make sure that this is passed to an attorney representing applicants before the board. Thank you!
     

    Hattie

    Active Member
    Sep 18, 2012
    178
    Some more detailed thoughts on the inapplicability of Snowden and Scherr from a post a while back:


    It is imperative to understand that the statute has been subtly, but materially, amended since Snowden and Scherr. In those cases, the statute required the applicant to show “good and substantial reason to wear, carry, or transport a handgun, provided however, that the phrase ‘good and substantial reason’ as used herein shall be deemed to include a finding that such permit is necessary as a reasonable precaution against apprehended danger.” (emphasis added).

    Under Snowden and Scherr, “good and substantial reason” thus could never be found absent a concomitant showing of “apprehended danger,” which the respective Courts determined must go beyond “personal anxiety” and be “more than the average person would expect to encounter.” See Snowden (“good and substantial reason requires something more than personal anxiety”) [1980]; Scherr (denying permit where MSP applied a standard of danger “more than the average person would expect to encounter,” despite MSP admission that there was no definitive measure for such a determination and that the standard itself had been made up of whole cloth by the MSP in the first instance [2005]).

    The present statute, by contrast, requires only that the applicant show good and substantial reason to wear, carry, or transport a handgun, such as a finding that the permit is necessary as a reasonable precaution against apprehended danger (emphasis added). The amended language makes clear that “apprehended danger” now is only an example of what can constitute “good and substantial reason", while at the same time abrogating the Snowden Court’s apparent rejection of the idea that “apprehended danger” alone was sufficient to require issuance of a permit under the statute then in effect.

    The present statute thus entitles the applicant to a permit upon a showing that either (i) a permit is necessary as a reasonable precaution against apprehended danger; or (ii) that any other “good and substantial reason” for the issuance thereof exists. Anything to the contrary in Snowden or Scherr has been superseded by statute.

    Furthermore, as has frequently been discussed, both Snowden and Scherr depend on interpreting the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as not applying to the States. The United States Supreme Court expressly overruled this interpretation in McDonald v. City of Chicago [2010]; it also ruled in Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual, not collective, right to keep and bear arms [2008]. These two Supreme Court decisions effectively deprive both Snowden and Scherr of any precedential value they might have subsequent to the change in statutory language discussed above.

    Consistent with this, in Woollard v. Gallagher [2013], the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently interpreted the term “good and substantial reason” in Maryland’s permit statute as equivalent to “palpable need.” What that term means has been extensively discussed, and need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that “palpable need” can exist without necessarily showing immediate “apprehended danger” and without showing some level of apprehension greater than some imaginary person in some undefined “community,” as MSP seeks to require
     

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