The legal fight against guns

As a means of getting back into things political after my weekend away, I found this chart – compiled by newly reinstalled Senate Minority Leader David Brinkley – quite instructive. It’s meant to be an ongoing narrative of the legal fight against 2013’s SB281, better known as the O’Malley gun law. (Some also refer to it as the Firearm Safety Act of 2013, but the only people who will be made safer by it are the criminals.)

As you can see, the good guys have been shut out so far, and to be perfectly honest I think that as long as this stays in Judge Catherine C. Blake’s courtroom the side of right will continue to be denied. Perhaps we’d have a better shot at the appellate level; unfortunately, the Fourth District Court of Appeals based out of Richmond is littered with Obama appointees, as 6 of the 15 jurists were appointed by our current chief executive. Conversely, just three judges remain from those appointed by George W. Bush; out of the other six there are four Clinton appointees and one holdover each from George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan – so the odds for a positive outcome aren’t exactly stacked in our favor. This despite the fact that Senate Bill 281 clearly infringes on our right to bear arms.

So it comes back to the decision on whether we should have put more effort into the referendum to stop SB281. Sadly, that ship sailed long ago and while I understand the track record for ballot issues on the conservative side isn’t very good, it should have been noted that the ballot issues which passed did so in a year where turnout was higher than would be the case in a gubernatorial election and no one named Obama will be on the ballot. In short, the electorate should trend more conservative in 2014.

Thus, it will be left to us to inflict the punishment as best we can on the party which sponsored and created the draconian measures. While seven Senate and seventeen House Democrats voted against the bill, they were mainly from districts deemed vulnerable by Democratic leadership so I’m betting they were given a pass to vote as if their jobs depended on it. Why have the faux conservatives when you can have the real thing?

If the right governor and enough members of the General Assembly are elected, the first bill out of the chute in 2015 might just be the one entitled “Firearm Safety Act of 2013 – Repeal.” That has a nice ring to it.

Ironically, another referendum effort gone awry is now winding its way into court as well. This came from MDPetitions.com last week:

If someone asked you whether or not you supported the US Constitution, would you say yes or no?  Of course you would say yes!  Hopefully, most Americans would say yes to that basic question.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened in November 2012.  The Maryland government pulled a “bait and switch” trick on Maryland voters.  An overwhelming majority of Marylanders voted to uphold the requirements of the US Constitution, not realizing that they were voting on a redistricting map that has made Maryland the laughing stock of the country.  See here for references to quotes about how bad our districts are, even Comedy Central poked fun at our “ugly” districts.

How can people vote on the redistricting map, when they had no idea that that was what they were voting on?  The hard-won voice of the people was snuffed out through trickery.  That’s not right, and MDPetitions.com has been working hard for you to RESTORE YOUR RIGHT TO A FAIR REFERENDUM.

(snip)

The illegal ballot language deprived Maryland voters of a fair opportunity to approve or reject the law/map, and therefore, justifies a re-vote on Maryland Question 5.  MDPetitions.com and Judicial Watch believe that a re-vote on Question 5 with language that actually describes the situation is the only accurate and truthful way to govern our state.(Emphasis in original.)

I hate to say it, but it was MDPetitions’ decision to forgo a referendum on SB281 that got us into this gun law mess. The redistricting would have been more appropriate for a court case, but instead we got it to the ballot (barely) and the voters supported the redistricting – in part because of the language and the fact the map wasn’t shown on the ballot. All that a 2014 revote would do now is confuse the issue, although there is the chance we could elect a GOP governor who could draw things in a more logical manner.

On the whole, though, we really shouldn’t have to rely on the legal system to safeguard us.