Gov. Hogan should close weapons loophole
Gov. Larry Hogan has been very busy. He’s been doing a widely approved job running the state of Maryland during the unprecedented times the coronavirus pandemic has created.
He’s about to be drawn back to some of the daily tasks of being governor. Today is his deadline on bills passed by the General Assembly session. He can sign, veto, or allow them to take effect without his signature.
Among the many, we urge him to sign HB 4 and close the loophole that allows the private sale or loan of rifles and shotguns without criminal background checks. This bill would close what many consider a gap in Maryland’s robust system of gun safety laws. Those laws already require buyers to undergo a federal background check when buying a long gun from a licensed dealer. Currently, private sales and permanent gifts of such guns do not require such a check. That allows these guns to travel between owners, with no safety measures to keep them from the hands of those barred from having them by Maryland law.
Opponents of the legislation say this public safety measure would do nothing to prevent crime. People who break the law, the argument goes, won’t worry about buying guns illegally.
They top that with the notion that this act would impose an unnecessary burden on law-abiding gun owners and infringes on their Second Amendment rights to own guns. We’re not sure that going to a licensed dealer and paying a $30 fee for the background check is much of a burden, and there is plenty of case law that shows regulating gun sales is a perfectly acceptable practice in the United States.
Long gun buyers in Maryland already are required to undergo a federal background check when buying from a licensed firearms dealer or store. Handguns sales require more extensive background checks as well as the training needed for a handgun qualification license. Those who testified for the bill in the most recent session included Andrea Chamblee, widow of reporter John McNamara. McNamara was murdered in the June 28, 2018 assault on the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, along with Wendi Winters, Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen and Rebecca Smith.
The man convicted of killing the five purchased the shotgun used in his rampage legally, police and prosecutors have said. They have not said how it was purchased, but it seems likely this law would not have prevented their deaths.
But it may prevent others. The man charged in the murder of Tyrique Hudson in Glen Burnie last year used a shotgun. Authorities have not said how he obtained it, but his criminal background barred him from purchasing one legally. These two cases may be unusual, but they are further proof that it is too easy for those who intend harm to obtain guns.
Hogan already has demonstrated his stature as a centrist on gun safety laws. In 2018, he signed legislation creating Maryland’s “red flag” law that allows police and the courts to take guns from people judged a danger to themselves or others and tightening procedures for taking guns from domestic abusers. We call on him to take the next logical step, close the shotgun and rifle loophole and commit to enforcing it.