BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said Maryland gun owners have every right to oppose new gun control legislation, Senate Bill 488, being pushed as the new solution to violent crime, because all it does is penalize the wrong people.
“The claims by proponents of the Gun Industry Accountability Act, including Gov. Wes Moore, that this legislation will prevent criminals from committing crimes border on the preposterous,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Also, the notion that creating a Center for Firearm Violence Prevention will do anything besides build another bureaucracy is, at best, wishful thinking.”
Gottlieb said holding firearms manufacturers and dealers responsible for crimes committed by criminals, who are frequently already prohibited by law from having guns because of past convictions, is “definitely the wrong approach.” He noted that Maryland reportedly ranks eighth in the country for gun law strength, but in 2022, it was 14th out of 50 states for the number of homicides, with more than 500 slayings, according to Statista.com. The veteran gun rights advocate has championed efforts such as Three Strikes and Hard Time for Armed Crime, which focus on criminals, instead of law-abiding gun owners, retailers and manufacturers.
“This new legislation creates the illusion that something is being done about violent crime involving guns,” he stated. “Instead, it merely shifts the blame away from the criminal and onto the shoulders of those in the firearms industry, and ultimately the honest Free State gun owners, who haven’t harmed anyone. There’s nothing fair, productive or morally right about that philosophy.
“It’s time for Wes Moore and his fellow Democrats to stop using gun owners and gun makers as scapegoats for their inability to prevent crimes, and their reluctance to harshly punish the people committing those violent crimes,” Gottlieb added.
“It is already illegal for people, especially students, to have guns at schools,” he observed. “It’s already illegal to shoot people, commit armed robberies or carjackings, and carry guns without a permit, yet the criminal element in Maryland keeps doing those things with impunity. Passing laws that punish the wrong people is a failed strategy, and it’s time to try something else.”