Busy week in Annapolis (guns, abortion, hate crimes, et al)

So, my past two days were spent testifying on a host of gun, anti-abortion, and hate crime bills in Annapolis. I had to sit through a lot of other bills during the hearing sessions, but the bills I testified on are described below.

Tuesday's events:

HB 1298 was the House version of the AWB that's dead in the Senate committee right now. The low point of the day was when the sponsoring delegate explained that the bill did NOT affect machine guns, but nevertheless was needed to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of the public. To illustrate his point, he showed a film clip of some guy blasting away with a semi-auto, in an attempt to implicate that anyone who owned a semi-auto rifle was in league with Tim McVeigh and the Michigan Militia (which were prominently referenced in the film). When it was my turn to testify, I read him the riot act about his "political stunt" of a bill and his slander of firearms owners with his little film. Particularly disgusting was the pack of nodding uniformed sycophants made up of pro-AWB chiefs of police from around the state, who nodded in unison as the film clip was shown. Goes to show who will man the camp gates and guard the ovens. Meanwhile, the FOP and State Police again testified in opposition to the AWB.:) Goes to show who will join the partisans . . .

Speaking of which, a Polish WWII vet testified in opposition to the AWB, citing his experience in the war and how Hitler first disarmed the population of each country he invaded, before firing up the ovens. The gentlemen then explained how he saw how Stalin disarmed Ukraine before causing the genocide there. The gentlemen then went on to explain how he deserted the Soviet Army and escaped through Siberia to US-occupied Japan. He proudly stated that he was an American citizen, and how he felt the Founders were wise enough to foresee a Hitler and Stalin by writing the Second Amendment into the U.S. Constitution, so that no genocide could easily happen here. I think his testimony was the high point of the evening.

HB 859 is MD's fair-issue CCW bill. I was planning on treading lightly on the racist roots of may-issue laws during my testimony, but those chiefs of police really pissed me off and so I rewrote my statement while I was waiting to testify so as to be sure to spell out the racism in MD's LEO community: Maryland State Police - currently under federal civil rights consent agreement; Montgomery County PD - under an NAACP lawsuit and federal civil rights consent agreement; Prince George's County PD - under a federal civil rights investigation because their officers like to sic their police dogs on unarmed minorities; and the Baltimore City PD - several officers just lost a $5 million PERSONAL lawsuit after they beat up and hospitalized a black man because they didn't believe a non-LEO black person in MD could have been issued a CCW permit because he was a cash business owner.

Another high point (or low, depending on your view), was that Scary Brady herself sat directly behind me during Tuesday's session. There were several cameras going off, but I haven't seen a news picture of her there. I would love to put up a picture of Scary Brady with me in front of her wearing my red "Maryland Gunowners VOTE" badge. What sucked was that as soon as the AWB supporters finished testifying, the five TV cameras in the hearing room packed up and left, even before the first AWB supporter started speaking. :eyes:

The definite fun point of Tuesday was when Leah Barrett, the president of Ceasefire MD, began arguing with the chair of the committee after he told her to stop reading her written testimony because too many people were waiting to testify against the bill to have her waste time like that. We need more enemies like that!:evilgrin: About 60-some people testified against the AWB, compared to less than 20 in favor, including the sponsor. There were no private citizens there in favor of the AWB.

Another positive development was that 30 people signed up to support the fair-issue bill, and only one no-show was there to oppose it. The fair-issue testimony was cut short because it was so late. We started the hearings session at 1pm and didn't end until after 8:30pm. I didn't get to testify, but the numbers of supporters were counted and entered into the record. I wrote up my testimony and sent it to the committee the next day, anyway.

Wednesday's events:

SB 137 was the senate version of the fair-issue bill. While I was signing up, I saw that the committee was also hearing an "Unborn Victims of Violence Act" bill :eyes:, and also a bill to include GLBT in the MD hate crimes enhancement law. So, I signed right up to oppose the anti-choice bill and support the GLBT bill.

The high points of this day were:
1) Out of 20-odd people testifying, I was only ONE of TWO people to OPPOSE the anti-choice bill :wtf: I got up there and said how I came for some other bill, but felt compelled to oppose the anti-choice bill, and explained why: this POS bill makes harming a fetus, even unknowingly, a crime (manslaughter, murder, reckless endangerment, attempted murder, etc). There were exceptions for abortions and health of the mother, but obviously this was about conferring legal personhood status on a fetus, not "protecting women from violence" as the supporters claimed. I was the first opponent, and the fundie senator who co-sponsored it lit into me, demanding to know why I "hated women and supported violence against women." She went to far as to say that I didn't know what I was talking about and should have just "done myself a favor" and stuck to my original purpose for coming to Annapolis that day. Negative - I gave it right back to her, about how this bill was just a political ploy to further the campaign of overturning Roe v Wade, and there were already laws on the books dealing with violence against women. People in the audience were shocked at the exchange. Two reporters followed up with me afterwards, so if anything gets published, I'll be sure to post it.

The GLBT bill was pretty non-eventful. I was one of maybe 5 people in support; no one was against.

The fair-issue bill hearing was interesting. I was like number 3 to testify. I focused my 3 minutes on the arbitrary nature of the system, the fact that may-issue was started in MD at the tail of the civil rights era, that 36 other states have discarded their may-issue systems, that the MD state police (who handle permits) have evaded the law by doling out permits for off-duty police officers at will (even though they're supposed to show "need" like all the other peons in MD), raised the question of "who else is getting favored treatment?," and explained how there is no accountability because the records concerning permitholders' "good reason" for having a permit are barred from public disclosure. I didn't get to go further into the racist nature of the may-issue system, but I did get to say that there were 10K permits issued to police and retired police, yet only 492 personal protection permits were issued in a state of 6 million people, and 80% of those went to whites in a state that's 40% minority and where violent crime is concentrated in minority neighborhoods. I had public information act cites to all these facts, and submitted written testimony as well, identical to the House testimony I submitted.

I didn't leave Annapolis Wednesay night until close to 9pm.

what ur job is if its not too personal??

but I did take two vacation days off to be in Annapolis.

the Polish WWII vet testify. he really nailed the intent of 2A and why we need to not mess with it. presumably scary brady was there with her bodyguards? how about they surrender their MP5s?

compare Democrats to Nazis....or pretend that assault weapons are all that's preventing a holocaust here...

Meanwhile two pro-gun Republicans further distinguished themselves (snicker) yesterday in Annapolis...

"Lobbyists representing Hispanics and a Jewish alliance said they were verbally assaulted by Dels. Patrick L. McDonough and Richard K. Impallaria, Republicans who represent Baltimore and Harford counties.
McDonough said in an interview last night that he also shoved a labor union director who tried to intervene in a heated discussion, but that it was in self-defense. Some of the lobbyists who witnessed the incident in a hallway outside the Economic Matters Committee hearing room called it a physical assault.
Department of General Services officials are reviewing the incident, and state police, who provide security in the General Assembly, will turn over their incident reports to the general services department, officials from both agencies said.
No criminal charges were filed, although House Speaker Michael E. Busch said he believed an ethics investigation into the delegates' actions may arise. "Nothing positive can come out of this," Busch said."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.delegates19mar19,0,3458601.story?coll=bal-home-utility

I've never seen him before. Anyone can sign up to testify - that's how I did it. I wish I could have shaken his hand after the session was over and thanked him for saving the world from Hitler.

I didn't see any bodyguards around Brady. She sat next to some supporter friend of hers at the last minute, and there were already random people sitting near her (like me).