Sign up for the referendem on 281 here.

I just got this from Delegate McDonough. If you want to particpate instructions are in the text.

Dear Second Amendment Supporter:

Thank you for taking the time to contact my office.* As a fellow gun owner, I strongly support your position.* I fought very hard in the House of Delegates to defend our rights.* I have enclosed a copy of the April 3, 2013 vote on Senate Bill 281.

The liberal super-majority pushed through their gun grabbing legislation.* We are now exploring the next step which means putting the issue in the hands of the people.* The petition campaign has not been organized*at this time.* I am simply attempting to make people aware that this needs to be done.* I am talking with legislators and others to generate interest.* The campaign can not begin until the bill is officially passed by the general assembly and signed by the Governor.* We then have until June 30th to collect 56,000 signatures which would suspend the gun law until the November 2014 election when the voters will decide the issue on referendum.

If you would like to participate in this process, please contact me at 410-238-0025 or send me an e-mail to PatMcDee@comcast.net.* Thank you, again, for your support through this process.* I look forward to working with you in the next few months.

Del. Pat McDonough
410-841-3334
District:* 410-238-0025

HOUSE VOTE – SB 281
78 Yeas 61 Nays 0 Not Voting 0 Excused (Absent) 2 Absent, April 3, 2013
Voting Yea - 78
Speaker Busch
Davis
Holmes
Mitchell
Stukes
Anderson
Dumais
Howard
Mizeur
Summers
Arora
Feldman
Hubbard
Morhaim
Swain
Barkley
Frick
Hucker
Nathan-Pulliam
Tarrant
Barnes
Frush
Ivey
Niemann
Turner, F.
Barve
Gaines
Jones
Oaks
Turner, V.
Bobo
Gilchrist
Kaiser
Pena-Melnyk
Valderrama
Branch
Glenn
Kelly, A.
Pendergrass
Valentino-Smith
Braveboy
Griffith
Kramer
Proctor
Vallario
Burns
Gutierrez
Lafferty
Reznik
Vaughn
Cardin
Guzzone
Lee
Robinson, B.
Waldstreicher
Carr
Hammen
Love
Robinson, S.
Walker
Clagett
Harper
Luedtke
Rosenberg
Washington, A.
Clippinger
Haynes
McHale
Simmons
Washington, M.
Conaway
Healey
McIntosh
Stein
Zucker
Cullison
Hixson
Miller, A.
Voting Nay - 61
Afzali
Donoghue
Impallaria
McDonough
Schuh
Aumann
Dwyer
Jacobs
McMillan
Schulz
Bates
Eckardt
James
Miller, W.
Serafini
Beidle
Elliott
Jameson
Murphy
Smigiel
Beitzel
Fisher
Kach
Myers
Sophocleus
Bohanan
Frank
Kelly, K.
Norman
Stifler
Boteler
George
Kipke
O'Donnell
Stocksdale
Bromwell
Glass
Krebs
Olszewski
Szeliga
Cane
Haddaway-Riccio
Malone
Otto
Vitale
Cluster
Hershey
McComas
Parrott
Weir
Conway
Hogan
McConkey
Ready
Wilson
Costa
Hough
McDermott
Rudolph
Wood
DeBoy
Not Voting - 0
Excused from Voting - 0
Excused (Absent) – 2
Carter
Minnick
*
*
SENATE VOTE -* SB 281
*
28 Yeas 19 Nays 0 Not Voting 0 Excused (Absent) 0 Absent, February 28, 2013
Voting Yea - 28
Mr. President
Jones-Rodwell
Peters
Benson
Kasemeyer
Pinsky
Brochin
Kelley
Pugh
Conway J
King
Ramirez
Currie
Madaleno
Raskin
Ferguson
Manno
Robey
Forehand
McFadden
Rosapepe
Frosh
Montgomery
Young
Garagiola
Muse
Zirkin
Gladden
Voting Nay - 19
Astle
Glassman
Middleton
Brinkley
Jacobs
Pipkin
Colburn
Jennings
Reilly
DeGrange
Kittleman
Shank
Dyson
Klausmeier
Simonaire
Edwards
Mathias
Stone
Getty
Not Voting - 0
Excused from Voting - 0
Excused (Absent) - 0
*

I disagree with a referendum. If you put it into the Baltimore City morgue voting system, you know how it will go. Better to challenge in court and vote the baddies out.

I for one don't want people making choices that undermine our chances to get this mess overturned.

I think we all need to have cool heads and make sure we understand at least as much as the people who have been working for our rights for years, before taking action.

I don't think anyone here wants to be remembered as being as foolish as the politician that called out against the AK-15. Uninformed action is counterproductive.

I certainly don't want any of my constitutional rights voted on by the same people that put O'Malley, Cardin, and Mikulski in office.

We need to do outreach in all possible ways. See thread I started here:
http://www.mdshooters.com/showthread.php?t=113677

What you're missing Travler is that a court decision would only overturn 1 part of the bill.
This Referendum gives us the chance to Overturn the whole enchilada.
Who knows how many years it would take to get rid of this bill in the court system piece by piece by piece. Who even says we will win ANY case against this in court?
We thought we had a chance with Wollard.
We as a Nation thought we had a chance of the SCOTUS overturning Obamacare.
Thinking a loss on the Referendum would embolden MD Gov't more? Well that's not possible. Look how they treated us with this bill. It would be nearly impossible for them to be more arrogant. They didn't care what we thought before, they don't care what we think now, and they certainly won't care what we think in the future.

The Referendum would also give us up to November 2014 to buy more regulated guns and accessories. If we just wait and "try" to take this to court we only have until October of this year. Now that most people know that SB281 passed, what do you think the MSP average wait of 45-50 days will jump up to. Some peoples purchases may not make the 10/01/13 deadline.

There is ZERO guarantee we can win with a Referendum. I am well aware of how this state votes.
There is also ZERO guarantee we could win in court. Not to mention the cost of court cases. Look at the time and money already spent by 1000's of us already in the fight against SB281.
We NEED to use every avenue available to us and the next road is REFERENDUM.

After the passing of SB281, I'd personally rather see the money that I donate to MSI go towards the education of MD voters to give us a better chance on both a Ref vote and removing the incumbents from office.

AND if nothing else it will postpone the bill going into effect till November 2014

haoleboy said:

The Referendum would also give us up to November 2014 to buy more regulated guns and accessories. If we just wait and "try" to take this to court we only have until October of this year. Now that most people know that SB281 passed, what do you think the MSP average wait of 45-50 days will jump up to.

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+1 THIS

Personally I'm thinking we oughta wait for an official opinion from MSI and the other powerhitters around here to give us their opinion on the best course of action.

I'm not sure what a referendum would buy us - more time maybe, but I'm of the opinion that this needs to be fought in the courts. The masses are asses - we can't let them decide our 2nd Amendment rights for us.

Rabu Rabu said:

Personally I'm thinking we oughta wait for an official opinion from MSI and the other powerhitters around here to give us their opinion on the best course of action.

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I agree..

Rabu Rabu said:

Personally I'm thinking we oughta wait for an official opinion from MSI and the other powerhitters around here to give us their opinion on the best course of action.

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Agreed. I don't think MSI is against doing the referendum for trivial reasons. They are way more informed than the chickens here running around screaming the sky is falling.

Heck the guy that started this post didn't even spell referendum right.

The Charge of the Light Brigade, 2014

The Charge of the Light Brigade, 2014

You guys are going to pull us all over the cliff into a political Grand Canyon if you continue to pursue this referendum course. It will be a political blunder of monumental proportions.

If you want to see Maryland law, a few years down the road, looking like what gun owners in New York, Connecticut, and California now face, the referendum route is the way to go. Another way to say it: If you want Baltimore and the DC suburb counties' delegations in the legislature to have even more power to set statewide gun policy in the future, that's the way to do it.

The electorate will ratify the bill, especially after they've been presented with biased summary of the law to vote on ("should there be a ban on high-powered semiautomatic assault rifles with military features and high-capacity magazines. . . ") and months of propaganda (both paid ads and "news" coverage) on TV.

The lost of losing -- and it won't be close -- will be great. In modern American history, there are not many examples of state legislatures going in exactly the opposite direction from what the electorate has just done in a referendum. The usual pattern is for the legislatures to say "the electorate has spoken, now we have a mandate to give them more of the same." You can find a couple exceptions, but they were not in states like Maryland.

The resources should be devoted to defeating specific legislators in specific districts who voted in favor of the restrictions despite the urging of well-informed blocs of gun-owners in their districts. You pick opportune districts where it is possible to vote bums out -- which would be mostly districts outside the most urbanized areas. The defeat of a fairly small number could have a great sobering effect on the legislature, particularly on the Senate side, if it was seen that support for the attack on gun owners was the decisive or a decisive factor. Many of the urban anti-gun legislators have tailor-drawn districts that it is practically impossible for them to loose, even in a primary. The good news is that the anti voters are also packed into those same districts, so they cannot vote to save the legislators whose districts are more diverse.

But by forcing a statewide referendum, you give away all your advantages of being able to pick your battlegrounds and you give away the advantage of localized intensity and organization. You turn it into a game of money -- Bloomberg could spend many millions on TV ads if necessary -- do you have millions? You turn it into a game in which the news media will sway many -- how do you think that will go? You turn it into a statewide game of raw numbers. Those TV ads will turn out the voters you want to stay home. The final outcome will look like a Washington Post poll on "gun violence." And the crushing defeat will nullify the sobering effects of knocking off some bums in the election, should that occur.

This enter notion needs to be subjected to much careful and analytical consideration, if you don't want 2014 to be the year that pro-gun forces in Maryland went down to bitter defeat in the political equivalent of the Charge of the Light Brigade.

Well Said

ThatIsAFact said:

The Charge of the Light Brigade, 2014

You guys are going to pull us all over the cliff into a political Grand Canyon if you continue to pursue this referendum course. It will be a political blunder of monumental proportions.

If you want to see Maryland law, a few years down the road, looking like what gun owners in New York, Connecticut, and California now face, the referendum route is the way to go. Another way to say it: If you want Baltimore and the DC suburb counties' delegations in the legislature to have even more power to set statewide gun policy in the future, that's the way to do it.

The electorate will ratify the bill, especially after they've been presented with biased summary of the law to vote on ("should there be a ban on high-powered semiautomatic assault rifles with military features and high-capacity magazines. . . ") and months of propaganda (both paid ads and "news" coverage) on TV.

The lost of losing -- and it won't be close -- will be great. In modern American history, there are not many examples of state legislatures going in exactly the opposite direction from what the electorate has just done in a referendum. The usual pattern is for the legislatures to say "the electorate has spoken, now we have a mandate to give them more of the same." You can find a couple exceptions, but they were not in states like Maryland.

The resources should be devoted to defeating specific legislators in specific districts who voted in favor of the restrictions despite the urging of well-informed blocs of gun-owners in their districts. You pick opportune districts where it is possible to vote bums out -- which would be mostly districts outside the most urbanized areas. The defeat of a fairly small number could have a great sobering effect on the legislature, particularly on the Senate side, if it was seen that support for the attack on gun owners was the decisive or a decisive factor. Many of the urban anti-gun legislators have tailor-drawn districts that it is practically impossible for them to loose, even in a primary. The good news is that the anti voters are also packed into those same districts, so they cannot vote to save the legislators whose districts are more diverse.

But by forcing a statewide referendum, you give away all your advantages of being able to pick your battlegrounds and you give away the advantage of localized intensity and organization. You turn it into a game of money -- Bloomberg could spend many millions on TV ads if necessary -- do you have millions? You turn it into a game in which the news media will sway many -- how do you think that will go? You turn it into a statewide game of raw numbers. Those TV ads will turn out the voters you want to stay home. The final outcome will look like a Washington Post poll on "gun violence." And the crushing defeat will nullify the sobering effects of knocking off some bums in the election, should that occur.

This enter notion needs to be subjected to much careful and analytical consideration, if you don't want 2014 to be the year that pro-gun forces in Maryland went down to bitter defeat in the political equivalent of the Charge of the Light Brigade.

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Well said! You condensed my thoughts and clarified it for me. I have strong emotional feelings after this vote and think my energy and ours would be better directed towards the next election and Operation DINO and ALAMO. I think it is best to follow the lead of MSI.

I know 1 OCT will be here before we realize it, but to make decisions while under stress is not what I feel we should do. I think we should wait for advise from MSI/NRA before we fly off the handle and get clobbered by our own actions!!

opticman said:

Well said! You condensed my thoughts and clarified it for me. I have strong emotional feelings after this vote and think my energy and ours would be better directed towards the next election and Operation DINO and ALAMO. I think it is best to follow the lead of MSI.

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Agreed - I think a referendum is a bad idea, and for all of the reasons ThisIsAFact just said. Our fight should be in the courts and at the polls.

Lets wait and ssee what the powers thhat be want too do. They are usually more in the know than most of us. Not saying it is a bad idea. Just may not be the besst idea.

Time to be blunt.

If any only if we fail to get an injunction will I waste my time and money on a referendum.



Its not smart strategy on many levels. It gives up all our advantages to the machine and the press.

dlmcbm said:

AND if nothing else it will postpone the bill going into effect till November 2014

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So will an injunction which is not that hard to get. Please let MSI take the lead.

Look what the court system did to us in the Wollard case. What makes anyone think they will treat SB281 differently?

haoleboy said:

Look what the court system did to us in the Wollard case. What makes anyone think they will treat SB281 differently?

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Most of SB281 deals with "In the Home." We have a little more well defined case law on "In The Home"