Democratic Delegate Candidate Proposes to Ban Guns Already Banned
Maryland Reporter has the story on Democratic House of Delegates candidate, Jordan Cooper’s proposal to make Maryland’s gun laws even more stringent than the new law set to take effect October 1.
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| Jordan Cooper |
Cooper, who holds a master’s degree from The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, wants a total ban on all assault rifles and “biennial renewal of gun licenses, and government confiscation of guns not properly licensed or renewed.”
Here is the text of his legislative proposal:
WHEREAS firearms have taken the lives of far too many Americans; and,
WHEREAS firearms have increasingly been used in the perpetration of national tragedies; and,
WHEREAS current firearm regulations have proven insufficient at thwarting public massacres; and,
WHEREAS encouraging responsibility and accountability among gun owners is in the interests of all Marylanders; and,
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED:
1. THAT all assault rifles, without exceptions for those firearms grandfathered in recent legislation, be outlawed in Maryland.
2. THAT to provide for responsible gun ownership in Maryland, all firearms will be registered in a statewide database and that all firearm registrations will be regularly renewed on a biannual (24 months) basis.
3. THAT all firearms lacking registration with the state or having expired registrations be surrendered to the State and that the State proactively seek to retrieve and confiscate all firearms with expired registrations exceeding six months.
4. THAT every firearm recovered from the scene of a crime or discovered to be in the possession of a convicted felon is cross-listed with this firearms registry database.
5. THAT to penalize straw purchasing of firearms, the owner of every firearm used in a homicide or robbery be penalized in accordance with the determination of the Secretary for the crime regardless of their (non)-involvement in the crime.
Note Cooper’s use of the word “assault rifle.” That term has a very specific meaning in U.S. law and military nomenclature. In a 1994 article in the Journal of Contemporary Law, David Kopel cited the Pentagon definition of “assault rifle.”
As the United States Defense Department’s Defense Intelligence Agency book Small Arms Identification and Operation Guide explains, “assault rifles” are “short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachine gun and rifle cartridges.”[21] In other words, assault rifles are battlefield rifles which can fire automatically.[22]Weapons capable of fully automatic fire, including assault rifles, have been regulated heavily in the United States since the National Firearms Act of 1934.[23] Taking possession of such weapons requires paying a $200 federal transfer tax and submitting to an FBI background check, including ten-print fingerprints.[24]
Cooper is proposing to ban guns that have already been banned since 1934. This disingenuous use of language by gun grabbers is not new, they use deliberate imprecision to perpetuate useful myths in pursuit of their policy wishes. Hence the wholly invented term “assault weapon.” Gun grabbers like Cooper use both words interchangeably to make semi-automatic (one trigger pull-one shot) weapons like the AR-15 appear to be no different than a fully automatic AK-47.
