A Viewer Writes: HB1302-"The Neighborhood Bag Lady Can Take Your Guns" bill

This bill is awful. I mean seriously awful. This allows anyone to go down to District Court, hold up their right hand and swear you are a danger to them, to yourself, or to others, and have your guns seized. The bill allows "any interested person" to take out an order. And that means just what it says. Anyone who is interested in you can get your guns seized. Including stalkers.

Think about it. Estranged relatives, ex-partners and spouses, stalkers, embittered ex-girlfriends and boyfriends, the drunken neighbor you called 911 on when he was beating his wife, the guy you called 911 on and reported for DWI one day in traffic, the employee you fired for stealing, the co-worker you reported for sexual harassment, your druggie relative who you won't give money to, the Facebook troll who despises your online politics and lives in or near Maryland, even the crazy bag lady who hates you because she thinks your cat is stealing her soul when it stares at her from your window, anybody who doesn't like you can get your guns seized. All they have to do is accuse you of threatening them.

Some arguments we will hear for this bill:

1. "Oh they need a preponderance of evidence." Yes, and since the respondent has no right to be notified of or heard during the initial application, the preponderance of evidence will be whatever the accuser says it is.

2. "It has to be sworn under penalty of perjury." Means nothing. As if people care or are intimidated by that. Especially crazy people or veterans of the criminal or civil justice system. It's been shown they don't. And perjury prosecutions won't happen. First off, most of the applications will simply be one person's word against another, and no way to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that anyone lied.

And ask people who say that to name you one, one single prosecution for perjury ever conducted anywhere in this state on any application for an ex-parte in the three decades that we've had them. I'll bet they can't. Even though ex-parte applications are lied on very frequently and used simply as tools in divorce and child support cases. And everyone in the legal system knows it. Heck, you even have attorneys telling their divorce clients to think of "something" they can file an ex-parte on as a bargaining chip.

3. "You can sue people who lie about you and take out one of these." More bullshit. The law specifically grants civil immunity for those who file "in good faith." And when it's one person's word against another, how will you prove it wasn't applied for in good faith.

4. "It's only six days and you can have the guns back if the court doesn't find cause." Bullshit. The law says you "may" have them back after six days. It puts no time constraint requiring police to give them back that fast. It cannot be done that fast. I know. I handled the returns for a police department. It takes a couple of months on average. And if a person has things like another person with a similar name and DOB with a murky criminal history, it can be a lot longer. A lot of criminal histories, especially in the city, are horribly incomplete and sometimes old dispositions can't even be resolved after lengthy hand searches.

This is a bad, bad bill and will require all MD gun owners to walk on eggshells, and not make anyone upset with them for any reason, no matter how justified and legal. Don't report anyone who sexually harasses you at work, don't call the police on anyone even if you have a really important reason, don't make your teenage daughter's stalker mad by taking out a peace order against him. Just hide in the shadows. This bill is a domestic violence criminal's dream.

The bill is in the Senate, First Reading. It needs to be stopped there. Write and call your senators. The spineless Republicans in the House caved on it almost to a man. And our equally vacillating Governor has indicated he will sign it. At a minimum, if it cannot be stopped the "any interested person" clause needs to be taken out and the bill made only to apply to medical practitioners and law enforcement as it was initially intended.