MSI fighting G&S circa 1973.

any handgun that has a barrel, slide, frame or receiver which is a die casting of zinc alloy or any other nonhomogeneous metal which will melt or deform at a temperature of less than 800 degrees Fahrenheit;

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And in Washington, less than four months before the mail-order Carcano was put to use in the crime of the century, a bill had been introduced in Congress regulating the sale of mail-order guns. This bill was still pending in Congress on November 22, 1963. Within a matter of weeks, some seventeen other firearms control bills were introduced in Congress.

"By the ordinary rules of the game," said The Reporter, "the event in Dallas should have ensured prompt enactment, just as the news of Thalidomide-deformed babies had provided the long-needed impetus for passage of stricter drug regulations in 1962." Popular support for gun control legislation was widespread. A nationwide Gallup Poll taken in January 1964 showed 78 per cent of the American people in favor of a law requiring a police permit for the purchase of a gun. In Congress, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield joined the Republican leader, Senator Everett McKinley Dirk-sen, in eloquently voicing the need for at least some firearms regulation.

But by the time the session had ended, nine months later, Congress had not acted. The proposed legislation had been the target for the deadly aim of one of the most extraordinary and powerful lobbies in the United States.

The lobby includes hunters and other gun owners, vendors of sporting arms and allied goods, manufacturers, wildlife preservation and conservation organizations, gun clubs and associations, outdoor and gun magazines, and assorted superpatriotic organizations, including militant right-wing extremist groups. Collectively, this loose alliance exerts an influence far greater than its true proportion of the country's population.

The lobby is highly vocal and often downright vitriolic. Over the years, it has managed to thwart all efforts made to introduce new and stricter firearms regulations. It matters little what type of legislation is proposed. To all such proposals, as far as the gun lobby is concerned, there is seldom any compromise. Any additional firearms legislation, no matter how mild, is bad legislation. Accordingly, proponents of gun-control laws are characterized as "anti-gun." To the lobby one is either "anti-gun" or "pro-gun," and there is no reasonable middle ground in its view.

"Probably no proposed legislation in city, state or Federal circles, can arouse the controversy, the arguments, or the bitterness that additional restrictive firearms laws or regulations can," said the Toledo Blade, shortly after the Kennedy assassination. "So bitter has this become that many legislators refer to any proposed gun laws as 'kiss of death' legislation, and veteran lawmakers shy away from it as they would from legislation that would advocate sin or belittle motherhood."

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I think strong laws should be passed restricting the sale of guns, but when you try, you run head-on into collision with the National Rifle Association.
—J. Edgar Hoover, quoted at a press conference by The New York Times, November 19, 1964

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The Washington Post
Nov 9, 1988
Page A40

Maryland s No-Quarter Gun War
Acrimonious Campaign Ends With Injunction and Countercharges
By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer

It ended predictably: at a high pitch, with neither side yielding, and a late-in-the-game phone blitz by National Rifle Association backers to mobilize their supporters in the Washington suburbs.

After spending a record-setting $5 million and pouring up to four million pieces of literature into Maryland, the NRA-backed Maryland Committee Against the Gun Ban wound down its campaign yesterday on a surprisingly subdued note. Although an intensive phone bank effort ran through the weekend to contact the committee's 250,000 identified supporters, there was no heavy presence at the polls in Baltimore or Washington's suburbs, and no organized door-to-door effort to get out the vote.

But that did not put an end to the acrimony in a campaign that pitted popular Gov. William Donald Schaefer against the powerful National Rifle Association, established Maryland as a national test case for gun control advocates and drew the attention of political figures such as Jesse L. Jackson.

After battling each other in various public forums, supporters and opponents of Maryland's controversial ban on some handguns wound up meeting at a Baltimore judge's house at dawn yesterday over alleged election law violations. There they continued to trade accusations of Election Day foul play in an effort to gain the final advantage in a referendum that polls indicated was a virtual dead heat.

Officials at the committee, the conduit for more than $4 million in NRA funds, said they were victimized by "police state" tactics Monday when Baltimore authorities searched their offices for evidence that they had hired Election Day poll workers and canvassers, a violation of state law against the use of so-called walking-around money. The search was triggered by news reports and a subsequent legal complaint, filed by Citizens for the Elimination of Saturday Night Specials, that the committee was offering inner-city youths $100 for work just on Election Day.

Before the polls opened, lawyers for both sides met at the home of Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan to argue over an injunction against the hiring that Kaplan had imposed Monday.

The injunction was left in place, even though Kaplan accepted assertions from the committee's attorneys that no laws were being broken.

Late yesterday, Maryland State Prosecutor Stephen Montanerelli said his office will continue looking into possible criminal violations by the gun lobby, based on a complaint from state Sen. John A. Pica Jr. (D-Baltimore), a supporter of the gun law.

Gun lobby officials continued to insist that the investigations are politically inspired.

"They were scared spitless that they were going to lose so they tried to play their ace in the hole," by complaining of election law violations, said Steve Mays of the Committee Against the Gun Ban. He blamed the search for a lower than expected turnout of volunteer poll workers throughout the Baltimore-Washington area, but said he felt the search was winning his group votes among people who had supported the gun ban "until they figured out what kind of police state Schaefer is running."

"A lot of our people were turned off because of the crap that went on yesterday," Mays said. "People saw the news and thought if they showed up [to work at the polls] they would be arrested."

Ricki Baker, a spokewoman for the gun control group, said her opponents were just angry because their poll workers, without the incentive of a pay check, had not shown up.

"One would conclude that their support is not very broad or very deep," Baker said. "Marylanders are rejecting the gun lobby's attempts to buy our election."

There was other evidence that the campaign was still inspiring Election Day tensions.

In Prince George's County, officials for the local chapter of the gun lobby refused to let a reporter observe their phone bank operation, and would not say how many volunteers or paid staff members were helping in the effort to get their supporters to vote.

"What is the angle?" spokeswoman Megan McCargo-Coleman testily asked a reporter, saying she and her organization had grown weary of what they called slanted reporting.

In Montgomery County, an official said 24 phone lines were working all day to finish a job begun last week—making personal calls to all of the county voters identified through earlier canvassing as opponents of the gun law.

Despite the legal wrangling in Baltimore, the campaign was drawing to a peaceful close elsewhere.

In Annapolis three teen-agers, off from school and saying they were eager to earn the $6 an hour offered for phone canvassers by the gun lobby, made last-minute calls, while 23 other lines went unused. Between busy signals and unanswered calls, the phone effort proceeded slowly, and was shut down by 3 p.m.

"We had just gotten to the point where it was not very efficient," said Grant Mydland, the phone bank coordinator in Annapolis. "We've done all that we can."

Staff Writer Paul W. Valentine contributed to this report.

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The Washington Post
Nov 8, 1988
Page B5

Judge Halts Payments In Md. Gun Campaign
By Paul W. Valentine
Washington Post Staff Writer

BALTIMORE, Nov. 7 – Controversy over Maryland's gun control law boiled over on election eve here today as the law's supporters accused opponents in court of illegally hiring inner-city residents at $100 each to distribute campaign literature on Election Day.

A city judge issued an emergency injunction late in the day ordering the Maryland Committee Against the Gun Ban to stop the alleged payments, and Baltimore's chief prosecutor, Stuart O. Simms, said he had begun a criminal investigation into the matter.

Committee leaders angrily denied the allegations, contending that they are erroneous and stem from desperate last-minute attempts by proponents of the state's handgun control law to derail the committee's $5 million campaign to defeat the law.

"We've been fully aware of Maryland election laws all along and will not violate them," said committee spokeswoman Pam Pryor. "The only paid workers on Election Day will be those within the provisions of the law."

Opponents of the gun control law, heavily financed by the National Rifle Association, have waged an increasingly acrimonious fight with proponents, who contend the NRA has used scare tactics and appealed to raw emotion, including racism, in seeking to overturn the law enacted by the legislature this year.

The law would establish a nine-member board—appointed by the governor and including two gun industry representatives—to decide which handguns are legitimate for sporting purposes and self-defense. Those weapons manufactured after 1984 that do not make the approved list would be banned from sale in Maryland. A vote "for" Question 3 on the ballot is a vote to retain the law.

The election eve controversy blew up with publication in the Baltimore Evening Sun today of a front-page story stating that opponents of the gun control law "lured" about 200 low-income black Baltimore residents to a meeting Saturday by offering to pay them $100 each to distribute literature at polling places on Election Day. An unspecified number "signed contracts" committing them to work during voting hours from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., according to the report.

Attorneys for Citizens For Eliminating Saturday Night Specials, the principal organization supporting the state's handgun law, rushed into court late this afternoon, contending the activity described in the news account violates a 1984 statute outlawing the use of so-called walk-around money, cash paid to casual workers to distribute literature and sample ballots at polling places on Election Day.

The law is aimed at workers receiving cash for Election Day only, not at regularly paid election campaign staff members. Traditionally, candidates in Baltimore gave "walk-around" sums ranging from $5 to $25 to faithful members of their neighborhood-based political clubs in exchange for poll work.

At a brief hearing this afternoon, Baltimore Circuit Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan ordered the Maryland Committee Against the Gun Ban to abide by the law but did not find that the committee had violated it. Referring to the news account, however, he said, "Clearly, if that is happening, that is a violation of the law."

Pryor said the Evening Sun news account was inaccurate and that "nobody has been hired only for Tuesday." She said all workers were hired on "extended contracts" over several days. While some will distribute literature, she said, others will help transport voters to the polls and engage in other activity allowed.

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The Washington Post
Nov 4, 1988
Page A1

Black Leaders in Baltimore Hired by Gun Law Opponents
Inner-City Voters Targeted in Referendum
By John Lancaster
Washington Post Staff Writer

In an increasingly heated struggle for black votes, the $5 million campaign to overturn Maryland's new handgun law has hired at least a half-dozen prominent black community leaders in Baltimore as consultants and coordinators, according to campaign officials and other community activists.

The black activists working on behalf of the Maryland Committee Against the Gun Ban—which is financed almost exclusively by the National Rifle Association—have been appearing on television and radio talk shows, leading inner-city rallies and organizing get-out-the-vote efforts as part of the campaign to repeal the law in Tuesday's referendum.

"They're literally buying off the community," said George Buntin, executive secretary of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP, one of a host of mainstream black organizations that support the gun control law. "Not everyone has strong enough principles to turn down that kind of money."

The campaign has recruited aggressively from Baltimore's black leadership, a potent political force in Maryland elections, hosting catered lunches at its North Calvert Street headquarters. One community activist, Lynnwood M. Taylor, said he was approached at the September funeral of Baltimore civil rights advocate Robert Cheeks, a function attended by scores of the city's black political elite.

Outside the city, the campaign has hired Washington radio personality Cathy Hughes to promote its cause.

In addition, the campaign has earned good will in some areas by paying neighborhood canvassers, some of them teenagers, $6 an hour to distribute literature and line up support.

"Everybody gets paid in a capitalist system," said Russ Johnson, a former radio talk show host and the founder of the Baltimore chapter of the Black United Fund. "I'm working on an issue I believe in."

Aimed at inexpensive, easily concealable handguns known as Saturday night specials, the law would create a nine-member board—appointed by the governor and including two gun industry representatives—that would decide which handguns are legitimate for sporting purposes and self-defense. Handguns manufactured after 1984 that are not on the approved list would be banned from sale in Maryland. A vote "for" Question 3 on the ballot is a vote in favor of the law.

Steven Miller, president of the black public relations firm that is coordinating the effort against the jaw in Baltimore and urban areas of Prince George's County, said the support of community activists is based on simple conviction.

"This is democracy at its finest," he said. "They felt as a matter of conscience that this stand had to be taken."

Miller acknowledged that at least six well-known black activists in Baltimore are receiving money for their work on behalf of the campaign, but he declined to reveal their salaries. "All campaigns spend money to get the word out," he said. "I think it is a racist argument, when there's money being spent on every campaign in this country, that when it's spent in the black community, there's some presumption" of false motives.

But Pam Pryor, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Committee Against the Gun Ban, acknowledged that the payment of community leaders is unique to the inner city campaign. "I don't think the voluntarism is as high in the city," she said. "It's just a different life style."

Among those who have been paid to take up the cause of the lobby opposed to the gun law is Hughes, the owner of Washington radio station WOL and a well known figure among blacks in Washington and the Maryland suburbs. Among those who say they have been approached by the committee—and turned down offers of pay—is Rodney Orange, a black political activist in Baltimore who managed the successful 1986 campaign of highly popular Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.).

Supporters of the law have not been blind to the opposition's tactics, and this week engaged Jesse L. Jackson to make a 60-second radio spot on their behalf that will be aired on stations catering to black audiences, according to a spokeswoman for the gun control group.

In addition to hiring community leaders, the campaign against the law has mounted an aggressive door-to-door and telephone canvassing effort in Baltimore and Prince George's County, which have the bulk of Maryland's black voters.

Maryland's black population has assumed a special significance in the battle over the gun law. Early polls indicated that blacks overwhelmingly supported it, but more recent surveys suggest that the campaign to overturn it has made substantial inroads. A divided black vote could well tip the election into the "against" column.

Black activists working for the campaign against the law gave a variety of reasons for their involvement. None would say how much they are being paid.

Morning Sunday, who ran unsuccessfully for the Baltimore City Council in 1984 and now is Baltimore coordinator for the presidential campaign of black activist Lenora Falani, said she went to work for the campaign "primarily" because it is providing jobs in poor neighborhoods.

"The black community never gets money when these things come around, and this is the first time anyone has ever valued our work enough to pay us for it," said Sunday, who has led a rally against the law at a housing project and attacked the law on a television talk show.

She objects to the law, she said, because "it doesn't address" the root causes of crime. "I may no longer be a knee-jerk liberal because I'm trying to look at things in terms of practical solutions," she said.

Lawrence Little, who identified himself as a civil engineer and board member of the Bethel AME Church in Baltimore, said he is working as a consultant to get-out-the-vote efforts but has no strong feelings about the law. "I'm not really opposed to the law," he said. "I'm in the middle. I'm trying to decide which way to vote."

Asked whether he was being paid for his help. Little replied that he was not, although he added, "I have no problem with anyone getting paid for what they do." Pryor and Miller both identified Little as a paid consultant.

Hughes, who led a lengthy boycott of the Washington Post Sunday magazine in 1986, appears in a new television spot attacking the law, although Pryor declined to say how much she was paid. "It was a professional fee and we don't choose to discuss that," she said. Hughes could not be reached for comment.

Others have chosen not to get involved. Irvin Conway, director of the. Baltimore Welfare Rights Organization, said he was invited to lunch early last month at the campaign's Baltimore headquarters by Roberta Gaines, a longtime community worker who now is trying to overturn the law.

Conway said he was surprised when he arrived at the office to find a lavish catered affair. "I was offended by it and I spoke out," he said, "I just let them know that I had more principle than to sell out my community, because it's black kids that are being shot."

But shortly thereafter, Conway said, Gaines called him with an offer of work. "I was told that I could put my budget together," he said. Conway declined.

Miller confirmed that Conway attended a lunch but denied that that the campaign tried to hire him. "These are lies," Miller said. "He works for the other side." Gaines did not answer repeated telephone messages.

Taylor, a longtime community organizer and a former affirmative action officer with the Baltimore transportation department, said he was approached at Cheeks' funeral by an old friend working for the campaign. She told him he could earn $700 a week if he did the same, he said.

"I agonized for two days," said Taylor, who quit his city job to care for his two small children after the death of his wife in 1987. "I could do miracles with that kind of money."

But he finally chose not to pursue the offer because, he said, "Anything we have to do to stop the proliferation of guns and violence, we have to do."

Miller said he has never heard of Taylor and said that he was the only campaign official authorized to make such offers.

But Orange, the manager of Mfume's campaign, said he was contacted during the summer by George Young, the chief media strategist for the campaign against the law, and told that "they were willing to pay between $500 and $1,000 a week."

Through a spokeswoman, Young denied ever contacting Orange about a job or for any other reason.

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The Washington Post
Nov 5, 1988
Page A1

Schaefer Swipes Back at NRA
Gun Law Foes' Flier Called Deceptive
By John Lancaster
Washington Post Writer

ANNAPOLIS, Nov. 4—An angry Gov. William Donald Schaefer, in his sharpest criticism to date of the $5 million effort to overturn Maryland's new handgun law, lashed out at the National Rifle Association today for waging a "cheap, lousy" campaign based on messages of "deception and fear."

"Waving copies of widely distributed campaign fliers—a "newspaper" published by the Maryland Committee Against the Gun Ban-that accuse Schaefer of misleading Maryland voters about the law, the governor struck a defiant pose, saying that he has been "targeted" by the gun lobby but that he is not intimidated by its money and power. "There are people in political life who are sometimes very concerned over whether the NRA will target them and spend millions of dollars to defeat them in an election," Schaefer said at a news conference on an unrelated matter. "This threat doesn't bother me at all."

He added sarcastically, "Hooray for them."

In Baltimore, meanwhile, black leaders expressed outrage over a report in yesterday's Washington Post that described how the NRA-backed Maryland Committee Against the Gun Ban has hired black activists at substantial salaries to help persuade inner-city voters that the handgun law should be repealed in Tuesday's referendum.

State Del. Ralph M. Hughes (D-Baltimore), a sponsor of the gun control law who appeared at a news conference today, urged blacks to stop working for the law's opponents and accused the NRA of "running a racist campaign."

The NRA, he said, had plowed $1 million to $2 million into Baltimore's inner city "to lie to the black community, to deceive the black community about this legislation." He said that gun legislation opponents' strategy is based on a belief that "blacks are inferior and should have inferior weapons that will blow up in their faces."

Aimed at cheap, easily conceal-able weapons known as Saturday night specials, the law would create a nine-member board—appointed by the governor and including two gun industry representatives—that would decide which handguns are legitimate for sporting use and self-defense. Those weapons manufactured after 1984 that are not on the approved list would be banned from sale in Maryland.

An "against" vote on Question 3 on the ballot is a vote to repeal the law.

The NRA-backed campaign takes on Schaefer at its own peril. Schaefer was elected in 1986 by the widest margin in Maryland history, and there are no indications that his stand in favor of the gun law has cost him significant popular support. The wisdom of the gun lobby's frontal assault remains to be seen.

Today, the governor's office released a letter Schaefer received last month from Fred Griisser, chairman of the NRA-backed committee, asking him to reconsider his position on the gun law in light of poll results suggesting that the measure was losing popular support. "Think about these numbers," Griisser wrote. "We certainly want you to be on our side when we win."

Schaefer fired off a terse, handwritten reply. "Do not count on me," he wrote. "I want Saturday night specials off the street. Incidentally, do you use one when you hunt?"

In an interview today, Griisser tried to play down the rift with Schaefer. "I like Governor Schaefer for some of the things he does, but on this one he's wrong," Griisser said. "He may actually believe what he's saying and not know he's deceiving people."

Campaign literature has been less equivocal, however. "Governor's Deception on Question 3 Results in Big Voter Revolt," blared a headline in The Free State Journal, a campaign newspaper mailed recently to 500,000 households in Maryland. Some appeared earlier this week inside the Montgomery Journal, prompting Journal editors to publish a front-page story today alerting readers that "the flier isn't ours."

The campaign literature accused, Schaefer of uttering seven "untruths" in a television commercial he made on behalf of the campaign supporting the gun law. The same story suggested that Schaefer is "irritated about the fact that he was not told about all of the flaws in the gun ban measure."

Asked about the allegations today, Schaefer came out swinging. He described the mailings as "cheap, lousy, deceptive newspapers," adding, "Everything I said [in the commercial], I stand by."

Schaefer said that he had been "trying to stay unemotional about this," but decided to speak up out of concern that the NRA-backed campaign was misrepresenting his views. "I deeply resent their implications that I'm unhappy with the bill" that the legislature approved earlier this year, he said.

Schaefer reserved his harshest words for the NRA. "I don't know if they've ever helped a family," he said. "They're more interested in preserving guns than in helping people."

The opposition has filled the airwaves with television ads suggesting that the law is a badly conceived measure whose only effect will be to deprive citizens of their legitimate right to self defense. One such ad features an elderly woman reading in bed while an intruder breaks into her home, an image that Schaefer attacked with particular venom.

"She of course is going to pull out a magnum and shoot somebody," he said with a strong measure of sarcasm. "That is deception and fear of the worst tactics I have ever seen."

In Baltimore, other black leaders, including legislator Hughes, Del. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Baltimore) and a dozen ministers and leaders of local civic and neighborhood improvement organizations, joined in denouncing the campaign against the gun law.

"The NRA thinks blacks won't do volunteer work and will only work for money," Hughes said during a news conference, adding that the majority of blacks campaigning for the gun law are unpaid.

But Cathy Hughes, a Washington radio personality with a substantial following among blacks in the Maryland suburbs, said she agreed to appear in a television commercial opposing the law out of a conviction that gun control discriminates against blacks by taking away their right to defend themselves.

"Gun control is always directed at black communities [out of fear] that if blacks are able to buy guns they will use them against whites," she said. "I'm in favor of private citizens being able to defend themselves." Hughes declined to reveal how much she was paid for the commercial.

Staff writer Paul W. Valentine contributed to this report.

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The Washington Post
Nov 3, 1988
Page D1

1 Gun Registered in MD For Every 4 Residents
By Paul W. Valentine
Washington Post Staff Writer

Handgun registrations in Maryland have surged this year to 1,040,000, or nearly one for every four residents, Maryland State Police officials announced yesterday. The report came less than a week before residents vote on whether to keep the state's new handgun control law.

Registrations through Sept. 30 total 15,294, a 15 percent increase over the number registered in the same period in 1987, officials said. They said they could not account for the surge.

Sgt. Robert G. Pepersack, head of the state police licensing division, estimated there are 1 million unregistered and illegal handguns in the state. Of the legal, registered weapons, he said, about 10 percent, or 100,000, are cheap, low-quality handguns known as Saturday night specials.

They are the primary target of the handgun control law being challenged by opponents in a referendum on Tuesday's ballot. The law, enacted by the state legislature last winter, creates an appointed board to compile a roster of acceptable weapons for law enforcement, recreational and self-defense purposes. Other more cheaply made guns would be banned from sale or manufacture in Maryland.

"These are not Saturday night specials," said state police Superintendent Elmer H. Tippett. "These are every-night-of-the-week specials."

Tippett, who as head of the state police would head the handgun control board and has declared his support of the law, said drug-related street crimes often are committed; with Saturday night specials. "Drugs and guns are going hand in hand," he said.

Tippett released the new hand-gun registration figures in preparation for this weekend's Maryland State Police Radio Program, a weekly public service broadcast; that airs police topics on 50 stations throughout the state.

Police spokesman Chuck Jackson said release of the handgun registration numbers a few days before the referendum was not calculated to influence voters. He noted that neither Tippett nor Pepersack mentions the law or the referendum in taped interviews for the radio stations.

He said this also was done to avoid demands by opponents of the gun control law for equal time.

The program "simply offers the public an opportunity to be aware of the status of handgun registrations," Jackson said. "It is in no way intended to urge listeners to vote one way or the other on the referendum."

The 1,040,000 handguns registered in Maryland represents the cumulative total since the state's registration law was implemented in 1966, and may be somewhat more than the actual number in possession of owners, a state police spokeswoman said.

She said there is no way of determining how many of the total have been discarded, sold privately out of state or otherwise taken out of circulation.

The total nevertheless represents almost one handgun for every four residents in Maryland, whose population is 4.2 million. "It's incredible," Jackson said.

In the District of Columbia, an estimated 15,000 weapons were registered under the city's strict registration law in the mid-1970s. No new registrations have been allowed since 1977. Figures for Virginia were not immediately available.

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The Washington Post
Nov 10, 1988
Page D9

Schaefer Sheepishly Bares Arms
By Paul W. Valentine
Washington Post Staff Writer

ANNAPOLIS, Nov. 9-Gov. William Donald Schaefer, Maryland's leading advocate of the state's handgun control law, made a "confession" today that he owns a handgun.

"Uh, yeah ... I have a handgun," he said at a news conference on the law when asked by a reporter.

"That's a confession," he added, smiling wanly.

Pressed for details, the governor, who is accompanied day and night by armed Maryland state police troopers, declined to describe the weapon or say whether it would be classified as a Saturday night special under the gun control law.

Agreeing with gun advocates in his own parlance, Schaefer said, "Under the Constitution, I have a right to—what?—something, I don't know, whatever it is, to bear arms or something...I believe in a strong military. I believe in guns."

He said, "I would never want to take a gun away from a person," adding that the gun control law is aimed only at removing cheaply made handguns commonly used in crimes. People "want to protect their families," he said, "....In my opinion, that's the American system."

The governor also would not reveal where he keeps the weapon.

"I hope it's not in your office," quipped Lt. Gov. Melvin A. Steinberg, who also attended the news conference. "I'll never disagree with your opinion."

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The Washington Post
Nov 13, 1988
Page C8

First I Went Hunting...
Then I voted for Maryland's ban on cheap handguns.

Early Tuesday, while the rest of Maryland was getting a good night's rest before voting on the gun ban and the next president, I was up at 4 a.m., hauling weapons and ammo to the Eastern Shore for a day's sea-duck hunting.

By dawn, six of us were armed and ready, watching the sun rise fiery orange over Tilghman Island. Conversation among my companions—the sort of gun nuts hunting often attracts—turned to the ballot question on whether to uphold the state's ban on cheap handguns, There wasn't much debate.

They wanted to end the hunting early so they could get home in time to vote against the ban. I didn't say so (few things are more unpleasant than a political argument in a duck blind), but I was in just as big a rush to get home and vote for it.

These, then, are the confessions of a die-hard hunter and gun owner who backs the ban. As odd as it may sound, I'm not alone. At least twice in the last year or so I've had letters from other hunters who vehemently oppose the National Rifle Association's perennial campaign for the right of any yahoo in America to own any kind of gun he wants by simply plunking down his money.

Turkey hunter Luther Carter of Washington, for example, said he was sick of the NRA whipsawing sportsmen into defending the legality of plastic pistols when its only apparent purpose was to defy detection by airport metal detectors. What, he wondered, did that have to do with hunting?

It was a good point, but I didn't pursue it in print, mostly because I never even faintly expected my fellow Marylanders to stand up to the NRA's withering, $5 million assault on the ban, and there seemed little point in alienating hunting readers over a lost cause.

Clearly, I underestimated the moxie of Free State voters. Now for once I'm in a majority, and nothing could please me better, except perhaps even stiffer controls on handguns.

Why would a man who keeps and regularly uses three shotguns and a high-powered rifle support restrictions on public access to firearms? Simple: Because there are two types of readily available firearms in this country—long guns and short guns—but only the long ones have a legitimate place for general sporting or recreational use.

NRA types cite the inalienable right of hunters to have handguns to use for sport. Yet in 14 years of intensive hunting from Australia to Europe to Kansas to Canada, I have never seen a hunter use a pistol for any reason and can't even remember seeing one carried into the field on a hunting trip.

The NRA also defends the right of pistol shooters who enjoy target competition and collecting. These are innocent-enough-sounding diversions, and maybe some accommodation should be made for these people. But is it fair, in a year when the District of Columbia is setting a record for murders, almost all committed with pistols, to put the lives of so many innocents in jeopardy for the unchecked convenience of a few hobbyists?

For practical purposes, a pistol simply has no advantage over a rifle or a shotgun, except for its portability and ease of concealment, the factors that make it appealing to criminals and killers. Self-defense? If someone breaks into my home with menace in his eyes and I need a gun to protect myself, I'll grab a shotgun every time.

To me and a lot of other longtime gun owners, the only emotion a pistol sparks is raw terror, even in the hands of a trusted friend, even in our own hands. The damned things are simply too easy to pick up and point, too easy to load and fire, too toylike and inviting to kids. The muzzle swings 180 degrees with the flick of a wrist.

When you pick up a shotgun or a rifle, there is no doubt that what you have in hand is a powerful, dangerous weapon. It takes a conscious act of evil intent to load one and point it at someone.

Wave a shotgun or a rifle around a crowd of people, and you're a dangerous idiot. Everyone runs, and someone is sure to call the police.

But pistols are familiar and intimate; you see them all the time on TV and the movies. Wave one around, and in many circles you're a minor hero; stick it back in your pocket, and it's invisible again.

Maryland's ban is specific. It addresses handguns only, and never suggests any designs on long guns. Nor should it, because long guns have not been implicated in crimes or in cases of accidental misuse. For these reasons, Maryland's ban on cheap pistols is a legitimate and needed step toward making our lives safer from lunatics, criminals and ourselves.

Hunters, like anyone else, should applaud it. This one already does.

—Angus Phillips
is The Post's outdoors columnist.

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Washington Post
Monday, November 7,1988
Page A22

For on 3: A Gun Law Checklist
(Editorial)

CLAIMS:

1) The law will lead to the disarming of all gun owners.

2) Homeowners and store keepers and anybody else who feels threatened by criminals or trespassers won't be able to keep handguns for self-defense.

3) The gun law doesn't specify which guns would be banned.

4) Maybe no guns at all will be approved.

5) People should have freedom of choice when they buy guns to purchase any firearm manufactured.

6) The board will be politically appointed and stacked with "anti-gun" people with an agenda to ban the sale and possession of all guns in the state.

7) The biggest pushers of the gun law are politicians and "anti-gun" groups determined to strip citizens of all firearms.

FACTS:

1) That would take enactment of a new law.

2) They can keep all handguns they have now, and buy others listed in the future as legal.

3) Criteria for approving handguns are spelled out. Decisions may be appealed.

4) The law says there shall be a roster "of permitted handguns that are useful for legitimate sporting, self-protection or law enforcement purposes." An empty roster would be absurd.

5) People will have freedom to buy safe guns as they do other consumer items.

6) The board must have specified representatives, appointed by the elected governor and confirmed by a majority of the elected state senate.

7) The greatest supporters are police and their families. They know bad weapons all too well. They seek votes for Question 3.

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Md. Gun Law: The NRA Replies
(Letter to Editor)

A Post [editorial, Oct. 29] asserts that the gun law deals with "faulty" handguns and that "if gun enthusiasts would direct their energies toward making distinctions between (dangerously shoddy goods) and handguns that do serve legitimate purposes, discussions would make a lot more sense." (The Post's Nov. 1 editorial on the gun law in Maryland also repeats this theme.) In fact, that is precisely what the NRA did in Annapolis in the week preceding the enactment of the handgun ban: we drafted and supported the passage of a bill that would have prohibited the manufacture and sale of "dangerously shoddy" handguns.

Unfortunately, however, in their zeal to ban the manufacture and sale of all pre-1985 handguns, the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee rejected our proposal. Thus, it is beyond doubt that the Maryland handgun legislation was not intended to deal with "dangerously shoddy" handguns but with functional, well-made handguns.

I might also point out that the statement in an editorial of Oct. 30 that under the Maryland legislation handguns "would be approved unless they are found to be unreliable, poorly made, easily concealable and unsuitable for self-protection, sporting activities or law enforcement" is patently false. In the first place, the first three criteria The Post mentions ("unreliable, poorly made, easily concealable") are not characteristics set forth in the legislation. Second, the legislation, rather than mandating approval of a particular handgun if it has certain certain characteristics, merely requires the board to "consider... the characteristics."

RICHARD E. GARDINER
Assistant General Counsel
National Rifle Association of America
Washington

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The Baltimore Sun
Oct 8, 1942
Page 28

WELLS WANTS NEW LAW DELAYING FIREARM SALE TO CUT SHOOTING CASES

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State's Attorney Says He Advocates Legislation Which Would Require Several Days' Advance Application For Purchase Of Guns

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Points Out That Legislature Already has Established Precedent By Requiring Marriage License Seekers To Wait For 48 Hours

Legislation to regulate and restrict the sale of firearms yesterday was advocated by J. Bernard Wells, State's Attorney, as the means of putting a stop to the increased number of deadly weapon cases arising in the city.

Mr. Wells said he advocates legislation which would require persons wishing to buy firearms to make application for the weapons several days in advance of the actual sale in order to give police authorities opportunity to check the applicant.

Wells Ready To Draw Up A Bill

The State prosecutor said he was prepared to draw up Euch a bill to present to the next Legislature, which meets in January. He said he was certain the bill would meet with the approval and have the support of the State's Attorneys Association of Maryland, of which he is president.

Such a requirement also would have the effect of deterring the use of firearms by persons who purchase weapons and commit murders in the heat of passion, he said.

Opposed To Complete Prohibition

The State's Attorney asserted he did not favor a complete prohibition on the sale of firearms because an enactment directed toward that end would have the effect of "placing guns in the hands of the lawless element, while the decent citizens who respect the law would be without the use of them in the protection of their homes."

"The absolute prohibition of the sale of firearms would in all probability operate to place them in the hands of the lawless element," Mr. Wells said. This fact has been used as an argument against legislation for a complete prohibition, he added.

He pointed out that permitting the sale of firearms to certified purchasers would not constitute a violation of any law "because the possession of a gun is quite within the law, while the carrying of a concealed, deadly weapon constitutes a violation."

Probe By Police

"Such a regulation which might be incorporated into a law might embody the requirement that an application be made a day or two in advance of the actual sale so as to provide for an investigation to be made of the proposed purchaser by the police department.

"Under present arrangements, a report of sales is required to be made, but these reports are not made except at various periods, giving opportunity for unlawful use of the firearms before the report ever reaches the headquarters.

"Aside from thwarting the vicious element who want to tote pistols with them for any situation, this provision also would tend to prevent impulsive murders that are the outgrowth of quarrels or fits of jealousy.

"My office, and I feel certain the State's Attorneys' Association of Maryland, of which I am president, would gladly lend its support to legislation of this general nature."

Marriage Licenses

Mr. Wells pointed out that the suggestion that applicants for firearms be required to wait several days after applying was in line with the action of the Legislature in requiring marriage license applicants to wait forty-eight hours before receiving the permit.

These proposals and other measures to curb the city's increasing crime rate will be thoroughly discussed at a conference with sitting police magistrates at 12.30 o'clock this afternoon, Mr. Wells said.

Stanton's Plan

Robert F. Stanton, Police Commissioner, who also will attend the conference, last week advocated that all deadly weapon cases be brought before the grand jury and the criminal courts because of the leniency of some magistrates in such cases, but judges and the grand jury foreman, along with Mr. Wells, suggested it would be better to confer with the magistrates on the matter.

Commissioner Stanton had also complained that the State of Maryland and Baltimore city are the easiest places in the United States to purchase deadly weapons because of the lack of proper legislation to curb such sales.

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The Baltimore Sun Page 9
Mar 5, 1949

SENATE GETS FIREARMS BILL

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Carrying Concealed Weapons Would Be Made A Felony

[Annapolis Bureau of the Sun]

Annapolis. March 4. Carrying concealed firearm would be made a felony, with penalties up to $1,000, three years in the Penitentiary, or both, under terms of a bill introduced today in the Senate. The proposed new subsection of the Concealed Weapons Act also would make it a felony, with similar penalties, to carry a firearm "openly with the intent or purpose of injuring any person in an un-lawful manner."

Apparently, the bill is an effort to revive the move to remove concealed weapons cases from the Bouse Act. They are now classified as misdemeanors.

Act Doesn't Cover Felonies

The Bouse Act prohibits introduction of evidence taken by illegal search and seizure in a trial for a misdemeanor. It does not cover felonies.

The so-called "frisking bill" which was an attempt to write in a direct exemption has been killed in the House Judiciary Committee because of opposition from Baltimore city delegates.

Sponsors of the new bill, which will accomplish the same purpose, are Senators Hoff (R. Carroll) and Turnbull (D. Baltimore county) , both strong supporters of the earlier measure.

Baltimore County Is exempt

Concealed weapons cases in Baltimore county are now exempt from the Bouse Act. The frisking measure would have made this one-county exemption, enacted at the 1947 session, State wide.

By the time the Statewide bill had reached the House, however, five counties had exempted themselves and other counties were reported to be planning to join them.

An attempt to get the Baltimore city House delegation to reconsider its decision of two weeks ago to exempt the city from the so-called frisking bill failed.

Motion Easily Defeated At a meeting, Delegate Schueler (D. Second ) moved that the 21 to-7 vote be reconsidered. Put to a voice vote, his motion was easily defeated.

The frisking bill was killed by the House Judiciary Committee after the Baltimore delegation voted to exempt the city. Since then, it is understood, several members of the delegation have changed their minds.

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The Baltimore Sun Page 15
Mar 10, 1949

Senate Group Reverses Stand, Votes Against Weapons Bill

[Annapolis Bureau of The Sun]

Annapolis, March 9—By a 5-to-4 vote, the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee voted today for an unfavorable report on the bill to make carrying a concealed firearm a felony and decided to hold it in committee.

Senator Della (D., Sixth Baltimore), chairman of the committee, cast the deciding vote on the measure, which would have exempted concealed firearm cases from provisions of the Bouse Act.

Report Reconsidered

A bill to accomplish the same purpose, Generally referred to as the "frisking bill," died in the House Judiciary Committee after the Baltimore city delegation voted to exempt the city.

The Bouse Act prohibits introduction in misdemeanor trials of evidence which has been obtained by illegal search and seizure.

A favorable report on the newer measure had been approved by the Judicial Proceedings Committee yesterday, but a motion was made this morning to reconsider the 4 to-3 vote.

Bill Is Merely Repealer

The committee today was under the impression a somewhat similar bill had been introduced by Delegate Preston (D. Fifth Baltimore) and was pending before the House Senator Delta said he would check its status.

Files in the Department of Legislative Reference, however, showed only one concealed-weapons bill by Mr. Preston, and that provided for repeal of a section of the Baltimore City Charter on concealed weapons already covered by a State-wide law.

Voting for an unfavorable report today were Senators Delia, McLaughlin (R„ Washington). Johnson (D., Worcester). Balch (D., Talbot) and Fraley (R., Garrett).

Senator Hoff (R., Carroll), one of the sponsors of the bill; Senator Storm (D.. Frederick), Senator Davis (R.. Montgomery) and Senator O'Neill (R., Harford) voted against the unfavorable report.

Knife Bill Passes House

Senator Turnbull, the other sponsor, did not vote, explaining he would rather hold the bill until information was obtained on the House bill mentioned during the meeting. Senator Fraley also explained he would prefer that the bill be held.

Meanwhile the House passed a bill making it unlawful for any person to sell, carry or possess any knife with an automatic spring-generally known as a switch-blade knife.

The bill, introduced by Delegate Melnicove (D. Fourth Baltimore) by request, provides penalties up to a $500 fine, one year's imprisonment, or both.

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The Baltimore Sun page 19
Nov 8, 1942

MAYOR RAPS FIREARM BILL

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Says Weapons Trade Would Simply Be Lost To Dealers Beyond City Line

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Declaring that the pending ordinance before the City Council for the regulation of the sale and possession of firearms would fail to achieve the purpose for which it was framed. Mayor Howard W. Jackson said yesterday that he was opposed to passage of the measure in its present form.

The ordinance was framed by State's Attorney J. Bernard Wells and was introduced in the Council some weeks ago. Members of the City Council are expected to act on the measure tomorrow.

Mayor Jackson also stated that [illegible] believed there would be considerable opposition to the concealed-weapons ordinance by members of the Council on the grounds that it provided restrictions only for the corporate city limits.

Looks To State

"I am not backing the measure in its present form," the Mayor said. "because its restrictions would extend only to Baltimore and persons wanting to buy weapons could go to any of the outlying suburban towns and make their purchases of weapons just as freely as they now do.

"I think there will be much opposition for the same reason among the Councilmen when the measure comes up for a final vote. Some think that the proper way of handling this problem is by an act of the State Legislature rather than through a city ordinance."

The proposed bill provides for a seventy-two-hour waiting period after the purchaser has made an application to buy a gun or a pistol. It also provides for the finger-printing of the owner of firearms.

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