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Md. Senate Panel Set to Shoot Down Smart Guns
Special Report: Full Post Coverage
By Daniel LeDuc
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 16, 2000; Page B1
A key Senate committee appeared ready to kill a proposal to mandate that all handguns sold in Maryland be high-tech guns designed to be fired only by authorized users, following the first hearing held on the issue yesterday.
Even before testimony began before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, a majority of committee members led by Chairman Walter M. Baker (D-Cecil) said they would vote against a bill that is at the heart of Gov. Parris N. Glendening's agenda for this year's legislative session.
"The technology is not there," said Baker, who comes from a rural Eastern Shore district that dislikes gun control. "Voting for the gun bill where I come from is like committing suicide."
Glendening's bill got a boost last night from President Clinton, who released a letter he had sent to the governor praising his "hard work and leadership and the efforts of so many in the Maryland legislature to make guns safer and keep them out of the hands of children and felons."
The presidential backing came as Glendening administration officials have been working hard to find a compromise that the governor and committee members can live with. Barring agreement, Glendening (D) has been turning to Senate leaders and other legislative allies to find alternative routes for the legislation that still would get it to a vote before the full Senate, where the governor believes it would win approval.
"If the votes aren't there [in committee], there are other ways of getting a bill out, several other ways," Glendening said. He said there were parliamentary maneuvers that allow bills in other committees to be amended with the personalized gun provisions or to have other legislation amended when it's voted on in the full Senate.
The governor also said he expected a filibuster by Senate opponents and was already trying to line up votes to counter it.
Glendening said he expected some changes in the legislation but was resolved to fight against efforts to dilute it. He has grown only firmer since a Potomac Research poll three weeks ago showed that 68 percent of Maryland voters supported his proposal and that 54 percent favored a ban on handgun sales in the state.
By comparison to a ban, Glendening said, "our bill is fairly moderate."
But not enough for key senators, including Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Prince George's), who said that Glendening's plan wouldn't pass as it is now but that a lesser requirement for trigger locks on handguns could.
The Senate committee has yet to schedule a vote on the issue.
Yesterday's hearing comes during a week when gun legislation dominates the agenda. There have been hearings on a proposal to ban handguns as raffle prizes, sparked by the Carroll County Republican Committee's recent raffling of a 9mm Beretta pistol. There have been hearings on a Carroll County senator's proposal to make it easier to carry concealed weapons and on a bipartisan bill to toughen prosecutions of gun crimes.
Also yesterday, the Senate voted to strip $1 million from the state budget that could have gone to Beretta USA, Maryland's only gun manufacturer, for research into safer weapons because the company has resisted the governor's proposal.
Glendening's proposal would require that integrated gun locks be on all new handguns sold in the state beginning in 2002. It also would require that after May 31, 2003--or as soon as the technology was available--all new handguns be "personalized" so that only authorized users could fire them.
Stephen Teret, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University, showed the Senate committee advertisements from a handgun manufacturer and a shotgun maker that touted new integrated locks and personalizing features. "We're not talking about something that's a far-fetched idea," he said. "We're talking about reality."
Opponents insist the technology is years away from fruition--if it ever will be available. Executives from Beretta say they are researching personalized guns but have yet to find any system as reliable as simple trigger locks now easily available.
The electronics will make handguns more expensive, putting them out of the reach of those who need them, especially women and African Americans in poor neighborhoods, said Yale University researcher John Lott, who argues that having more guns in society reduces crime.
"You go and add a couple of hundred dollars onto the price of a gun, and those are the people who are going to be discriminated against," he said.
© 2000 The Washington Post Company
Md. Senate Panel Set to Shoot Down Smart Guns
Special Report: Full Post Coverage
By Daniel LeDuc
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 16, 2000; Page B1
A key Senate committee appeared ready to kill a proposal to mandate that all handguns sold in Maryland be high-tech guns designed to be fired only by authorized users, following the first hearing held on the issue yesterday.
Even before testimony began before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, a majority of committee members led by Chairman Walter M. Baker (D-Cecil) said they would vote against a bill that is at the heart of Gov. Parris N. Glendening's agenda for this year's legislative session.
"The technology is not there," said Baker, who comes from a rural Eastern Shore district that dislikes gun control. "Voting for the gun bill where I come from is like committing suicide."
Glendening's bill got a boost last night from President Clinton, who released a letter he had sent to the governor praising his "hard work and leadership and the efforts of so many in the Maryland legislature to make guns safer and keep them out of the hands of children and felons."
The presidential backing came as Glendening administration officials have been working hard to find a compromise that the governor and committee members can live with. Barring agreement, Glendening (D) has been turning to Senate leaders and other legislative allies to find alternative routes for the legislation that still would get it to a vote before the full Senate, where the governor believes it would win approval.
"If the votes aren't there [in committee], there are other ways of getting a bill out, several other ways," Glendening said. He said there were parliamentary maneuvers that allow bills in other committees to be amended with the personalized gun provisions or to have other legislation amended when it's voted on in the full Senate.
The governor also said he expected a filibuster by Senate opponents and was already trying to line up votes to counter it.
Glendening said he expected some changes in the legislation but was resolved to fight against efforts to dilute it. He has grown only firmer since a Potomac Research poll three weeks ago showed that 68 percent of Maryland voters supported his proposal and that 54 percent favored a ban on handgun sales in the state.
By comparison to a ban, Glendening said, "our bill is fairly moderate."
But not enough for key senators, including Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Prince George's), who said that Glendening's plan wouldn't pass as it is now but that a lesser requirement for trigger locks on handguns could.
The Senate committee has yet to schedule a vote on the issue.
Yesterday's hearing comes during a week when gun legislation dominates the agenda. There have been hearings on a proposal to ban handguns as raffle prizes, sparked by the Carroll County Republican Committee's recent raffling of a 9mm Beretta pistol. There have been hearings on a Carroll County senator's proposal to make it easier to carry concealed weapons and on a bipartisan bill to toughen prosecutions of gun crimes.
Also yesterday, the Senate voted to strip $1 million from the state budget that could have gone to Beretta USA, Maryland's only gun manufacturer, for research into safer weapons because the company has resisted the governor's proposal.
Glendening's proposal would require that integrated gun locks be on all new handguns sold in the state beginning in 2002. It also would require that after May 31, 2003--or as soon as the technology was available--all new handguns be "personalized" so that only authorized users could fire them.
Stephen Teret, director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University, showed the Senate committee advertisements from a handgun manufacturer and a shotgun maker that touted new integrated locks and personalizing features. "We're not talking about something that's a far-fetched idea," he said. "We're talking about reality."
Opponents insist the technology is years away from fruition--if it ever will be available. Executives from Beretta say they are researching personalized guns but have yet to find any system as reliable as simple trigger locks now easily available.
The electronics will make handguns more expensive, putting them out of the reach of those who need them, especially women and African Americans in poor neighborhoods, said Yale University researcher John Lott, who argues that having more guns in society reduces crime.
"You go and add a couple of hundred dollars onto the price of a gun, and those are the people who are going to be discriminated against," he said.
© 2000 The Washington Post Company