Is my thinking wrong? 2.0

Hawkeye said:

That's a common misconception. The MD "regulated firearms" list, which contained the HBAR exception, predates the Federal list.



No, and no. The MSP issued a letter that says that they consider a "copy" to be a firearm which is both cosmetically similar to and which has completely interchangeable parts with a named banned firearm.



That's correct.

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MD list was before, but, IIRC, got amended to match the 94 ban list, or the 94 ban list used the MD list.

No, AG issued the letter. If MSP issued the letter, it would be meaningless.

ANY part means that any one of the parts. If you swap all parts, you have the same two rifles

Pinecone said:

MD list was before, but, IIRC, got amended to match the 94 ban list, or the 94 ban list used the MD list.



No, AG issued the letter. If MSP issued the letter, it would be meaningless.



ANY part means that any one of the parts. If you swap all parts, you have the same two rifles

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By that definition, a copy could be a totally different gun with the same flash hider. Makes no sense


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Hawkeye said:

Your thinking isn't wrong.

However, the "catch" here is that the "marked or marketed" thing isn't in the statute. The only thing the statute says is that the Colt AR-15 and it's copies are banned, with the exception of the Colt Sporter HBAR. It doesn't define what "HBAR" is at all. The marked or marketed thing comes from a determination made by the MSP firearms division. That determination isn't law, and can be changed at any time in the future if MSP decides to change it. It's silly, but it is what it is.

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Fitting perfectly with the MSP's longstanding and cherished tradition of "Arbitrary and Capricious."

So whats actually stopping people from buying a non marked or marketed barrel and making it an HBAR? Fear? What measures are in place to make the whole HBAR effective? It seems even though it’s there, there’s not much if anything MD can do to prevent people from buying any barrel they want.

Take this situation: Your average person takes a trip to a gun shop in VA. Sees a barrel that’s not marked or marketed as HBAR. Buys said barrel and arrives home with it in MD. Goes down into the basement and reappears with a marked HBAR 2 minutes later.

Meets what the MSP want. So what now? We’re any laws broken? I understand the point of not being the test case but what would they have to stand on?

Pinecone said:

MD list was before, but, IIRC, got amended to match the 94 ban list, or the 94 ban list used the MD list.

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No, the Maryland list was never amended. It was enacted in 1989 and has been the same ever since, and was copy / pasted into the FSA 2013. The '94 Federal ban was a little different - it only listed nine specific firearms, for example.

No, AG issued the letter. If MSP issued the letter, it would be meaningless.

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Ok. There are two letters we can concern ourselves with here. The one that I am talking about was from Lt. Donald Harrison, who was in charge of the Licensing Division of MSP at the time. You can find a copy of it right here:

http://www3.nssf.org/share/PDF/MDRuling.pdf

This is the letter that established and uses the "completely interchangeable parts" language that we all refer to a lot on here.

And it's not meaningless, because MSP's licensing division has regulatory power over the sections of MD law dealing with firearms. This is also why we have things like the "one shot" requirement for the HQL class and other BS like that - because MSP just added them as regulations.

There was a second letter, written by Mark Bowen on behalf of Gansler to Terry Sheridan several months before that which tells the State Police that a) a copy didn't mean cosmetics, it meant functionality, and that b) the specific determination of what a copy is is up to the MSP since they're the state agency that gets to administer firearms law. I will attach a copy of that letter to this post right here. View attachment AG ruling on copies.pdf

The part that would concern us here is on the last two pages:

Mark Bowen said:

Consistent with the General Assembly’s apparent intent to create a definition with an eye toward the function of the weapon, a “copy” would include a firearm whose internal components and function, necessary to the operation of the firearm, are similar to those of one of the specifically enumerated assault weapons. As the agency charged with administering the regulated firearms law, the Department of State Police must make that assessment.

III Conclusion

For the reasons set forth above, it is our opinion that the reference to “copies” in PS §5-101(p)(2) does not extend the regulated firearms law to weapons that bear a mere cosmetic similarity to a listed weapon. Rather, in order for a firearm to be considered a copy of a listed assault weapon, and therefore governed by the regulated firearms law, there must be a similarity between the internal components and function of the firearm in question and those of one of the listed weapons. A determination as to whether a particular firearm bears such similarity is a factual question entrusted in the first instance to the Department of State Police.

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So what this is is the AG's office telling MSP that their read of the law is that a copy doesn't just mean cosmetic, and then the MSP issuing a regulatory ruling that a copy means completely interchangeable parts.

ANY part means that any one of the parts. If you swap all parts, you have the same two rifles

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I don't know where your'e getting this "any one part" thing from. MSP's ruling uses the language that in order to be a copy of an enumerated assault weapon, a rifle must:

[have] completely interchangeable internal components necessary for the full operation and function of any one of the specifically enumerated assault weapons...

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In other words, it doesn't matter if one of the components is the same. ALL of the components must be interchangeable.

dmable44 said:

So whats actually stopping people from buying a non marked or marketed barrel and making it an HBAR? Fear?

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Basically, yes. The way that MSP has chosen to define an HBAR makes this law totally unenforceable. People don't break it in general because decent people try not to break laws. But practically speaking it's impossible to enforce, like you said.

Take this situation: Your average person takes a trip to a gun shop in VA. Sees a barrel that’s not marked or marketed as HBAR. Buys said barrel and arrives home with it in MD. Goes down into the basement and reappears with a marked HBAR 2 minutes later.

Meets what the MSP want.

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That's debatable. I need to go find their ruling, but I believe that they wanted it marked by the manufacturer specifically (though I could be wrong about that).

Hawkeye said:

People don't break it in general because decent people try not to break laws.

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Well that’s why I think about these things. I have no intentions of breaking any laws, but if by my theoretical situation above, are there any laws being broken? And if not then I don’t see anything wrong or indecent. Just someone living by their rights. Or am I wrong there?