Measure focusing on banning assault rifles draws big turnout

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - A bill that would ban 45 assault weapons in Maryland, focusing on rifles, drew a big turnout Tuesday, with supporters calling it a commonsense measure to protect residents and police, and with opponents saying it would fail to keep them out of criminals' hands.

The bill, which was heard in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, has the backing of Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat who has testified in favor of such bans in the past.

"I'm in favor of this one and would sign it if they can get it to me," O'Malley said in a brief interview with The Associated Press while he was walking toward the governor's mansion. advertisement

The bill would prohibit a person from transporting, selling or buying one of the 45 weapons in Maryland. It designates "assault long guns" and "copycat weapons" as guns that would be affected. The General Assembly has come up short in passing such a ban for four straight years.

Sen. Mike Lenett, D-Montgomery, described the weapons as ones "built to be fired from the hip rather than aimed from the shoulder, allowing the user to spray a large quantity of ammunition from high capacity magazines over a wide area at close range as quickly as possible."

"These weapons are particularly ill-suited to hunting or target-shooting, but remarkably well-suited to killing a lot of people in a hurry," said Lenett, who is the bill's chief sponsor and mentioned the sniper slayings in 2002 that left seven Maryland residents dead as one reason why such a law is needed.

But some lawmakers had a lot of questions about whether the bill would keep the guns away from criminals. Others questioned how often these types of guns were used in crimes.

Sen. Nancy Jacobs, a Republican who represents parts of Harford and Cecil counties, questioned how the bill would prevent gang members from acquiring and using the weapons.

"I've never known them to obey the law," she said, evoking applause from opponents of the bill and causing Sen. Brian Frosh, the committee chair, to call for order and remind the audience that the hearing "was not a basketball game."

About 130 people signed up to testify on Senate Bill 43. Opponents, many wearing at least one sticker or button with a red line through "SB 43," followed testimony from outside the committee hearing room, because all the seats inside were taken.

One of them, Leonard Hubbard of Tracy's Landing in Anne Arundel County, said the bill used "too broad a brush."

"They're trying to cover too many weapons at one time, and still infringing on our Second Amendment rights."

But the bill also drew many supporters from the law enforcement community and a young woman who lost her father, an FBI agent, to a killer with an assault weapon.

Dale Miller, 20, testified tearfully about how her father Michael Miller was killed in November 1994 along with Washington D.C. police Sgt. Henry Daley and FBI agent Martha Martinez by Bennie Lee Lawson. Lawson had walked into D.C. police headquarters with a fully automatic MAC-11 and opened fire.

Dale Miller, who lives in Calvert County, told lawmakers that the crime "ripped my father from my life when I was just eight years old."

She asked them: "How many more innocent people have to be murdered by these assault weapons before it becomes a problem that is important enough to be realistically addressed by lawmakers?"

The measure, as proposed, would include a grandfather clause, allowing a licensed firearms dealer to keep selling the weapons, if the dealer lawfully had them before October 1, 2007. A person who lawfully possessed any of the guns before that date and who registered the gun with the Secretary of State Police before Dec. 1 could keep it.

In 1994, Maryland banned the sale and possession of assault pistols, which were defined as 15 semiautomatic pistols.

A federal assault weapons ban on 19 guns took effect in September 1994. However, the federal ban ended 10 years later.

Critics of the proposed Maryland ban cite the lapse of the federal ban as a reason not to support it. Sen. James Brochin, D-Baltimore County, focused on how the new Democratic-controlled Congress hasn't included bring it back as a top priority

BRIAN WITTE
Associated Press
Feb. 27, 2007 04:18 PM