SB 281 was voted out of Committee
- Thread starter NextJen
- Start date
Tomcat
Anytime
If you own a gun and care about your rights you're needed in Annapolis this afternoon Maryland Shooters - Announcements in Forum : Maryland 2A Issues They will be debating and voting on the Governor's Gun Control Bill this afternoon at 5:00 in the Maryland State House. Head up after work, see how screwed up our Delegates really are then stop by the Rams Head or somewhere else for something to eat.[/
Tilted
..
I listened to some of the (unofficial 
) feed from the committee meeting Friday. I haven't had a chance to post since then, but here were my thoughts.
It's tragic enough that those twenty young people were deprived of a chance to live their lives by the incarnation of evil that, as chance would have it, befell their world this past December. Now their memory will forever be linked to the tyranny writ large that is being enacted in their name across this nation. It's shameful.
We dishonor them with these cowardly actions. We obscure what illumination their memory might provide by turning our frustration over their fate inward as pointless punishment heaped upon ourselves. We evince the worst parts of our human nature with the self-loathing, denied though it surely is, that alone can explain this push to further curtail our individual liberties. We show ourselves unworthy of the continued privilege which they so unfairly had revoked - the privilege of living in a nation that's supposed to stand like a beacon in the night for those that would have freedom as their guiding light. We fail their memory and we fail countless other young people to whom we owe better. It's shameful.
I'm speaking to you President Obama, and to you Governor O'Malley. I'm speaking to you Mayor Bloomberg, Senator Frosh, Delegate Vallario, and to all of the other legislators and government leaders across this nation that are succumbing to - and for some perhaps, taking advantage of - the misguided hysteria and calling for or enacting these liberty-encroaching, counter-productive, paternalistically-offensive new measures. It's shameful.
I give the benefit of the doubt that most of you mean well. But meaning well is not enough to absolve you of blame or insulate you from criticism. We've all heard it said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Many a would-be tyrant set off nobly on their path. Much oppression has sprung from the well of earnest concern. Leadership demands more than good intentions. It demands wisdom, not just conviction. It demands well-considered action, not just feel-good flailing. It demands insightful messages, not just passionate rhetoric. It demands focus, not just excitation. It demands purpose in course selection, not just wheels put in motion in hopes of happening on a desirable destination. It demands courage in the face of real enemies, not just tilting at windmills. You've given us plenty of those latter things, but too little of the former ones. It's shameful.
You don't realize it and you probably won't accept it, but you stand now with the villains, not with the heroes. You think you're doing good work, you think you're fighting the good fight; but you're allowing yourself to be an agent of evil. You're a different kind of agent than the Newtown killer was to be sure, let's make no mistake about that, but an agent of evil nonetheless. Where he was the wolf given a taste for blood by evil, betrayed by his longing for purpose; you're just the shepherd made negligent in your duty and tricked by evil, betrayed by your fear and naiveté. In the long run however, isn't your capitulation to evil more dangerous than his embracement of it? Where his transgression was acute, yours is chronic. You don't stand in opposition to his actions, you stand in exacerbation of them and in fulfillment of his purpose. You seek to codify the fear, the self-hatred, the helplessness that he inflamed. You enact the oppression that he could only hope to inspire. It's shameful.
No amount of elections won or appreciation received from impassioned, but ultimately misguided, constituents will ever wash away the shame you now stain yourself with. The outburst of evil in Newtown claimed 28 lives. But evil does not measure victory in lives claimed alone, it measures it in actions influenced, hearts possessed, and liberty denied. The victory you give it, with the evil you seek to enact by your votes and by your pens, will outweigh that which it manages to claim through murder alone. You do more violence to society, and to the beautiful embodiment of freedom that we call life, than could be done by a hundred nuts with a thousand firearms. Shame on you. And shame on the rest of us for letting you do it. On behalf of humanity, I apologize to those who lost their lives in Newton and whom we now use as the excuse for our latest round of societal masochism. May they rest in peace oblivious to what we do in their name.
So… A bunch of rhetorical flourish devoid of substantive argument you say? I'll give you that. It was a stylistic choice meant to reflect the lack of purposeful substance generally found in the latest "gun control" measures being advanced. For the most part those measures are little more than symbolic fodder for the undiscriminating masses seeking to satiate the impotence they feel in the wake of Sandy Hook. Besides, the substantive arguments have been well made again and again. Such substance seems lost on many, if it weren't these new gun control initiatives would have already been abandoned.
) feed from the committee meeting Friday. I haven't had a chance to post since then, but here were my thoughts.It's tragic enough that those twenty young people were deprived of a chance to live their lives by the incarnation of evil that, as chance would have it, befell their world this past December. Now their memory will forever be linked to the tyranny writ large that is being enacted in their name across this nation. It's shameful.
We dishonor them with these cowardly actions. We obscure what illumination their memory might provide by turning our frustration over their fate inward as pointless punishment heaped upon ourselves. We evince the worst parts of our human nature with the self-loathing, denied though it surely is, that alone can explain this push to further curtail our individual liberties. We show ourselves unworthy of the continued privilege which they so unfairly had revoked - the privilege of living in a nation that's supposed to stand like a beacon in the night for those that would have freedom as their guiding light. We fail their memory and we fail countless other young people to whom we owe better. It's shameful.
I'm speaking to you President Obama, and to you Governor O'Malley. I'm speaking to you Mayor Bloomberg, Senator Frosh, Delegate Vallario, and to all of the other legislators and government leaders across this nation that are succumbing to - and for some perhaps, taking advantage of - the misguided hysteria and calling for or enacting these liberty-encroaching, counter-productive, paternalistically-offensive new measures. It's shameful.
I give the benefit of the doubt that most of you mean well. But meaning well is not enough to absolve you of blame or insulate you from criticism. We've all heard it said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Many a would-be tyrant set off nobly on their path. Much oppression has sprung from the well of earnest concern. Leadership demands more than good intentions. It demands wisdom, not just conviction. It demands well-considered action, not just feel-good flailing. It demands insightful messages, not just passionate rhetoric. It demands focus, not just excitation. It demands purpose in course selection, not just wheels put in motion in hopes of happening on a desirable destination. It demands courage in the face of real enemies, not just tilting at windmills. You've given us plenty of those latter things, but too little of the former ones. It's shameful.
You don't realize it and you probably won't accept it, but you stand now with the villains, not with the heroes. You think you're doing good work, you think you're fighting the good fight; but you're allowing yourself to be an agent of evil. You're a different kind of agent than the Newtown killer was to be sure, let's make no mistake about that, but an agent of evil nonetheless. Where he was the wolf given a taste for blood by evil, betrayed by his longing for purpose; you're just the shepherd made negligent in your duty and tricked by evil, betrayed by your fear and naiveté. In the long run however, isn't your capitulation to evil more dangerous than his embracement of it? Where his transgression was acute, yours is chronic. You don't stand in opposition to his actions, you stand in exacerbation of them and in fulfillment of his purpose. You seek to codify the fear, the self-hatred, the helplessness that he inflamed. You enact the oppression that he could only hope to inspire. It's shameful.
No amount of elections won or appreciation received from impassioned, but ultimately misguided, constituents will ever wash away the shame you now stain yourself with. The outburst of evil in Newtown claimed 28 lives. But evil does not measure victory in lives claimed alone, it measures it in actions influenced, hearts possessed, and liberty denied. The victory you give it, with the evil you seek to enact by your votes and by your pens, will outweigh that which it manages to claim through murder alone. You do more violence to society, and to the beautiful embodiment of freedom that we call life, than could be done by a hundred nuts with a thousand firearms. Shame on you. And shame on the rest of us for letting you do it. On behalf of humanity, I apologize to those who lost their lives in Newton and whom we now use as the excuse for our latest round of societal masochism. May they rest in peace oblivious to what we do in their name.
So… A bunch of rhetorical flourish devoid of substantive argument you say? I'll give you that. It was a stylistic choice meant to reflect the lack of purposeful substance generally found in the latest "gun control" measures being advanced. For the most part those measures are little more than symbolic fodder for the undiscriminating masses seeking to satiate the impotence they feel in the wake of Sandy Hook. Besides, the substantive arguments have been well made again and again. Such substance seems lost on many, if it weren't these new gun control initiatives would have already been abandoned.
Tilted
Bravo, bravissimo, bravolingus!!!
Bravo, bravissimo, bravolingus!!!
Larry Gude
Strung Out
I listened to some of the (unofficial
It's tragic enough that those twenty young people were deprived of a chance to live their lives by the incarnation of evil that, as chance would have it, befell their world this past December. Now their memory will forever be linked to the tyranny writ large that is being enacted in their name across this nation. It's shameful.
We dishonor them with these cowardly actions. We obscure what illumination their memory might provide by turning our frustration over their fate inward as pointless punishment heaped upon ourselves. We evince the worst parts of our human nature with the self-loathing, denied though it surely is, that alone can explain this push to further curtail our individual liberties. We show ourselves unworthy of the continued privilege which they so unfairly had revoked - the privilege of living in a nation that's supposed to stand like a beacon in the night for those that would have freedom as their guiding light. We fail their memory and we fail countless other young people to whom we owe better. It's shameful.
I'm speaking to you President Obama, and to you Governor O'Malley. I'm speaking to you Mayor Bloomberg, Senator Frosh, Delegate Vallario, and to all of the other legislators and government leaders across this nation that are succumbing to - and for some perhaps, taking advantage of - the misguided hysteria and calling for or enacting these liberty-encroaching, counter-productive, paternalistically-offensive new measures. It's shameful.
I give the benefit of the doubt that most of you mean well. But meaning well is not enough to absolve you of blame or insulate you from criticism. We've all heard it said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Many a would-be tyrant set off nobly on their path. Much oppression has sprung from the well of earnest concern. Leadership demands more than good intentions. It demands wisdom, not just conviction. It demands well-considered action, not just feel-good flailing. It demands insightful messages, not just passionate rhetoric. It demands focus, not just excitation. It demands purpose in course selection, not just wheels put in motion in hopes of happening on a desirable destination. It demands courage in the face of real enemies, not just tilting at windmills. You've given us plenty of those latter things, but too little of the former ones. It's shameful.
You don't realize it and you probably won't accept it, but you stand now with the villains, not with the heroes. You think you're doing good work, you think you're fighting the good fight; but you're allowing yourself to be an agent of evil. You're a different kind of agent than the Newtown killer was to be sure, let's make no mistake about that, but an agent of evil nonetheless. Where he was the wolf given a taste for blood by evil, betrayed by his longing for purpose; you're just the shepherd made negligent in your duty and tricked by evil, betrayed by your fear and naiveté. In the long run however, isn't your capitulation to evil more dangerous than his embracement of it? Where his transgression was acute, yours is chronic. You don't stand in opposition to his actions, you stand in exacerbation of them and in fulfillment of his purpose. You seek to codify the fear, the self-hatred, the helplessness that he inflamed. You enact the oppression that he could only hope to inspire. It's shameful.
No amount of elections won or appreciation received from impassioned, but ultimately misguided, constituents will ever wash away the shame you now stain yourself with. The outburst of evil in Newtown claimed 28 lives. But evil does not measure victory in lives claimed alone, it measures it in actions influenced, hearts possessed, and liberty denied. The victory you give it, with the evil you seek to enact by your votes and by your pens, will outweigh that which it manages to claim through murder alone. You do more violence to society, and to the beautiful embodiment of freedom that we call life, than could be done by a hundred nuts with a thousand firearms. Shame on you. And shame on the rest of us for letting you do it. On behalf of humanity, I apologize to those who lost their lives in Newton and whom we now use as the excuse for our latest round of societal masochism. May they rest in peace oblivious to what we do in their name.
So… A bunch of rhetorical flourish devoid of substantive argument you say? I'll give you that. It was a stylistic choice meant to reflect the lack of purposeful substance generally found in the latest "gun control" measures being advanced. For the most part those measures are little more than symbolic fodder for the undiscriminating masses seeking to satiate the impotence they feel in the wake of Sandy Hook. Besides, the substantive arguments have been well made again and again. Such substance seems lost on many, if it weren't these new gun control initiatives would have already been abandoned.
That was ####ing BRILLIANT. An absolute, chilling, stirring MASTERPIECE.
May I post that on my FB? Share it with friends???? I'll attribute it as you wish.
Standing ####ing ovation.
Tilted
..
That was ####ing BRILLIANT. An absolute, chilling, stirring MASTERPIECE.
May I post that on my FB? Share it with friends???? I'll attribute it as you wish.
Standing ####ing ovation.
Of course you may.
Also, you use Facebook? Am I the only person left with an internet connection that doesn't?
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Even my 86 year old grandma uses FB.
However, my one aunt uses neither FB nor computers. At all. She has a cell phone for emergencies and her home phone is mounted to the wall in the kitchen.
How you wanna be attributed???
NextJen
Raisin cane
My MOM is not on facebook, but I do have her using iMessage
and for the record I posted that on my FB Wall as well
Tilted
..
I don't really need attribution, but you could probably include a link to the original post (along with whatever text you want to copy). A few extra page views for SOMD Online might fall out of it.
That was awesome! I also was wondering if I may repost elsewhere?
Yes, and that goes for others as well.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
I don't really need attribution, but you could probably include a link to the original post (along with whatever text you want to copy). A few extra page views for SOMD Online might fall out of it.
.
OK, so, just to check how you spell your name, L-a-r-r-y and G-u-d...say, how do you pronounce that anyway???
PsyOps
Pixelated
PsyOps
Pixelated
I listened to some of the (unofficial
It's tragic enough that those twenty young people were deprived of a chance to live their lives by the incarnation of evil that, as chance would have it, befell their world this past December. Now their memory will forever be linked to the tyranny writ large that is being enacted in their name across this nation. It's shameful.
We dishonor them with these cowardly actions. We obscure what illumination their memory might provide by turning our frustration over their fate inward as pointless punishment heaped upon ourselves. We evince the worst parts of our human nature with the self-loathing, denied though it surely is, that alone can explain this push to further curtail our individual liberties. We show ourselves unworthy of the continued privilege which they so unfairly had revoked - the privilege of living in a nation that's supposed to stand like a beacon in the night for those that would have freedom as their guiding light. We fail their memory and we fail countless other young people to whom we owe better. It's shameful.
I'm speaking to you President Obama, and to you Governor O'Malley. I'm speaking to you Mayor Bloomberg, Senator Frosh, Delegate Vallario, and to all of the other legislators and government leaders across this nation that are succumbing to - and for some perhaps, taking advantage of - the misguided hysteria and calling for or enacting these liberty-encroaching, counter-productive, paternalistically-offensive new measures. It's shameful.
I give the benefit of the doubt that most of you mean well. But meaning well is not enough to absolve you of blame or insulate you from criticism. We've all heard it said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Many a would-be tyrant set off nobly on their path. Much oppression has sprung from the well of earnest concern. Leadership demands more than good intentions. It demands wisdom, not just conviction. It demands well-considered action, not just feel-good flailing. It demands insightful messages, not just passionate rhetoric. It demands focus, not just excitation. It demands purpose in course selection, not just wheels put in motion in hopes of happening on a desirable destination. It demands courage in the face of real enemies, not just tilting at windmills. You've given us plenty of those latter things, but too little of the former ones. It's shameful.
You don't realize it and you probably won't accept it, but you stand now with the villains, not with the heroes. You think you're doing good work, you think you're fighting the good fight; but you're allowing yourself to be an agent of evil. You're a different kind of agent than the Newtown killer was to be sure, let's make no mistake about that, but an agent of evil nonetheless. Where he was the wolf given a taste for blood by evil, betrayed by his longing for purpose; you're just the shepherd made negligent in your duty and tricked by evil, betrayed by your fear and naiveté. In the long run however, isn't your capitulation to evil more dangerous than his embracement of it? Where his transgression was acute, yours is chronic. You don't stand in opposition to his actions, you stand in exacerbation of them and in fulfillment of his purpose. You seek to codify the fear, the self-hatred, the helplessness that he inflamed. You enact the oppression that he could only hope to inspire. It's shameful.
No amount of elections won or appreciation received from impassioned, but ultimately misguided, constituents will ever wash away the shame you now stain yourself with. The outburst of evil in Newtown claimed 28 lives. But evil does not measure victory in lives claimed alone, it measures it in actions influenced, hearts possessed, and liberty denied. The victory you give it, with the evil you seek to enact by your votes and by your pens, will outweigh that which it manages to claim through murder alone. You do more violence to society, and to the beautiful embodiment of freedom that we call life, than could be done by a hundred nuts with a thousand firearms. Shame on you. And shame on the rest of us for letting you do it. On behalf of humanity, I apologize to those who lost their lives in Newton and whom we now use as the excuse for our latest round of societal masochism. May they rest in peace oblivious to what we do in their name.
So… A bunch of rhetorical flourish devoid of substantive argument you say? I'll give you that. It was a stylistic choice meant to reflect the lack of purposeful substance generally found in the latest "gun control" measures being advanced. For the most part those measures are little more than symbolic fodder for the undiscriminating masses seeking to satiate the impotence they feel in the wake of Sandy Hook. Besides, the substantive arguments have been well made again and again. Such substance seems lost on many, if it weren't these new gun control initiatives would have already been abandoned.
Please tell me you're going to Annapolis this afternoon and making this speech.
PsyOps
Pixelated
Tilted
..
Please tell me you're going to Annapolis this afternoon and making this speech.
I'm pretty sure that isn't a public hearing today (i.e. they aren't taking comments from the public). But even if it were, I probably wouldn't be there. At the moment I'm what you might call laid up, treating an ankle sprain (which I regrettably refused to be limited by for a couple of weeks) with the standard R.I.C.E. regimen.
I posted it on my FB as well. Did you get one yet?
No, I'm saving my Facebook virginity. For what I have no idea.
Tomcat
Anytime
Tomcat
Anytime
PsyOps
Pixelated
Sorry to hear that. Golf?
Regardless, you have a gift with words and it appears folks are not content with letting it just being a fleeting moment in this forum.
Tilted
..
I'm waiting for the General Assembly to post updated text for SB281 to reflect the amendments that were adopted in the House committee (Friday) and on the House floor (yesterday) so that I can get a good picture of where we're at now. In a number of regards, the bill has been watered down - that is to say, it's been made a little less bad. On the other hand, some additional bad stuff appears to have been added. It's tedious trying to go through each adopted amendment and figuring out exactly how it affects various provisions of the bill. It will be easier to make sense of it all when we can see an updated text.
For now though, it appears to me that the registration requirement for previously owned "assault long guns" and "copycat weapons" has been eliminated. It will be legal to possess and transport those weapons if you own them before October 1st, and you won't be required to register them in order to continue doing so. The bill has also been amended to make it clear that the $15 fee paid by new Maryland residents to register their "regulated firearms" is not per firearm. They would pay $15 with their registration application and that would cover all of the firearms they list. And people that already lawfully own a "regulated firearm" would be exempted from the training requirement for getting the license needed to buy handguns going forward. They would still have to get the license which would require them to, among other things, submit fingerprints. But they wouldn't have to complete the safety training course. Those people who don't already lawfully own a "regulated firearm" would, with some other exceptions, still have to complete the course.
None of this is certain to be true of the bill that will eventually get passed, there could be further amendments. But they're running up against time constraints so they don't want to keep amending it and needing to have both chambers pass the same amended version.
For now though, it appears to me that the registration requirement for previously owned "assault long guns" and "copycat weapons" has been eliminated. It will be legal to possess and transport those weapons if you own them before October 1st, and you won't be required to register them in order to continue doing so. The bill has also been amended to make it clear that the $15 fee paid by new Maryland residents to register their "regulated firearms" is not per firearm. They would pay $15 with their registration application and that would cover all of the firearms they list. And people that already lawfully own a "regulated firearm" would be exempted from the training requirement for getting the license needed to buy handguns going forward. They would still have to get the license which would require them to, among other things, submit fingerprints. But they wouldn't have to complete the safety training course. Those people who don't already lawfully own a "regulated firearm" would, with some other exceptions, still have to complete the course.
None of this is certain to be true of the bill that will eventually get passed, there could be further amendments. But they're running up against time constraints so they don't want to keep amending it and needing to have both chambers pass the same amended version.