Dogmeat
Ultimate Member
In a post started by Boxcab (which went south pretty quicky ) he posted some numbers that IMHO, seem pretty reasonable and certainly match the numbers I came up with independently.
Maryland Population, ~ 5.9 Million persons (2012 - 5,884,563)
Approximately 20% are gun owners, ~ 1.2 Million (Anyone have a better number?)
Last Election, ~ 2.5 Million people voted in Maryland
Maryland Shooters Forum members, ~ 21,419 (Today)
The reason we have so many problems is, IMHO, the Maryland Legislature views gun owners as a much smaller segment of the population of Maryland than that. Think about the numbers they kept tossing out during the hearings this year. I seem to recall them saying that there were only something like 45K "registered assault weapons" in the state. I have no idea where they came up with that number but it certainly explains why they freaked out when 117K "regulated firearms" were sold so far this year. (BTW - I know I used different terms in the previous statement, I don't think "They" understand the difference!)
While I certainly understand the push for 2A centric voting, there is just no way that is going to happen in Maryland considering the diversity of the population of gun owners. My thought on this is simple, if every gun owner in Maryland got their HQL, that would be over one million HQLs in the state. That would make us the biggest perceived voting block in the state and, even knowing the fact that we are not all going to vote together on everything, the realization that we "Might" all vote together may help keep the Legislature in check. It would certainly be a wake-up call for them.
The latest HQL number I heard of was in the mid 1300's. In 25 Days, that is about 54 HQL's per day. I would anticipate that the daily number will increase as more people discover they need it and, as those who do know, figure out how to jump through the hoops. But, even at 100 per day, that will only be about 12K issued by the time the Legislature meets again. Those numbers won't mean anything. We need 100K plus in 4 months, 1000 per day, if this is to matter at all.
Well, that's my thoughts on the matter, I will be interested in hearing your comments.
Dogmeat
Maryland Population, ~ 5.9 Million persons (2012 - 5,884,563)
Approximately 20% are gun owners, ~ 1.2 Million (Anyone have a better number?)
Last Election, ~ 2.5 Million people voted in Maryland
Maryland Shooters Forum members, ~ 21,419 (Today)
The reason we have so many problems is, IMHO, the Maryland Legislature views gun owners as a much smaller segment of the population of Maryland than that. Think about the numbers they kept tossing out during the hearings this year. I seem to recall them saying that there were only something like 45K "registered assault weapons" in the state. I have no idea where they came up with that number but it certainly explains why they freaked out when 117K "regulated firearms" were sold so far this year. (BTW - I know I used different terms in the previous statement, I don't think "They" understand the difference!)
While I certainly understand the push for 2A centric voting, there is just no way that is going to happen in Maryland considering the diversity of the population of gun owners. My thought on this is simple, if every gun owner in Maryland got their HQL, that would be over one million HQLs in the state. That would make us the biggest perceived voting block in the state and, even knowing the fact that we are not all going to vote together on everything, the realization that we "Might" all vote together may help keep the Legislature in check. It would certainly be a wake-up call for them.
The latest HQL number I heard of was in the mid 1300's. In 25 Days, that is about 54 HQL's per day. I would anticipate that the daily number will increase as more people discover they need it and, as those who do know, figure out how to jump through the hoops. But, even at 100 per day, that will only be about 12K issued by the time the Legislature meets again. Those numbers won't mean anything. We need 100K plus in 4 months, 1000 per day, if this is to matter at all.
Well, that's my thoughts on the matter, I will be interested in hearing your comments.
Dogmeat