Maryland’s new gun control law, The Firearms Safety Act of 2013, is piece of junk. It does nothing to stop or reduce gun-related violence. Instead, what it does do, it contravenes the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.
You know this. I know this. But what’s interesting is that the former head of the firearms licensing division for the Maryland State Police knows this as well.
His name is Jack McCauley. Unfortunately, he no longer works for the MSP. He retired because, as he told Fox News, Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley’s administration was misleading the public about the sweeping gun-control law.
Now he wants to set the record straight.
“My goal is to educate the public, because the mainstream media and the governor’s office are intentionally lying to people,” McCauley told FoxNews.com.
McCauley tried to tell the truth about the draconian gun law when he was called to testify at a State House Judiciary subcommittee hearing prior to its passage. He was asked directly by one of the lawmakers if the then-bill would reduce crime.
“As I began to respond, I was commanded by Shanetta Paskel, the Deputy Legislative Officer for the Office of Governor Martin O’Malley, not to answer the delegate’s question,” McCauley said on a sworn affidavit.
McCauley told Fox News that if he was allowed to respond he would have said that the bill’s expanded ban on so-called “assault weapons” would not reduce gun-related violence because those firearms are almost never used in crimes and that the bill would have no effect on mass shootings.
“Immediately following the end of the meeting … Ms. Paskel explained why she ordered me not to answer, saying that the act was ‘not about policy; it is just [about] votes,'” McCauley’s testimony reads.
In other words, the optics of passing feel-good legislation as a way to appeal to voters is more important than actually passing a bill that would protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners while working to reduce crime.
“It’s an inconvenience regulation for gun owners,” said McCauley, regarding the bill. “It’s a right, and I believe it’s in our Constitution.”
“I’m a police officer who was sworn to uphold the Constitution,” McCauley continued. “I had no idea how badly we were trampling people’s rights.”
You people repeat lies show me one law trump has broken some of you. Need to blow ur brains out
Maybe this stupidity is why they just elected a Republican governor.
Alas, we’ll still have a Democratic Attorney General and a Democratic Majority in the State House in the Peoples Republic of Maryland. We’ll have to see what our Republican Governor-elect get get through the Democratic legislature. At least he may be able to relax restrictions on the right to carry, but we’ll probably be stuck with buying 10-round magazines for the foreseeable future.
States claim their authority from two sources – their constitutions and their “police powers.” Most State constitutions prohibit their respective States the authority to make firearms legislation through specific declarations of a “right to arms” (rights are inviolable except through due judicial – not legislative – process), a lack of enumerated authority, and/or other direct prohibitions. This leaves “police powers” as the most oft-cited authority for firearms legislation. Granting, for the moment, that the States have “police powers,” these powers are not plenary. The police powers of the state are limited to those necessary for public order and safety, while still being respectful of the rights of the people. Assuming for the moment that these law do respect the people’s rights, because so many gun control laws both logically and demonstrably do not contribute to either public or safety, they are beyond the authority of the States’ police powers. The state cannot simply make any laws it wishes. Even the exercise of their valid police powers (if they actually have such authority at all) is limited to those acts that are effective. If they are not effective, they are arbitrary, and arbitrary legislation is unconstitutional on principle, because of their nature.
For instance, imagine that the police in a State have noticed that most crack houses are blue. Can the state, as an exercise of its police powers, demand the owners of all blue houses register their ownership of those properties with the State? Can the State demand that all blue houses be painted some other color as part of a crime- control effort? Obviously not. And why not? Because these actions would have no effect on crime, and would do nothing but discomfit the owners of blue houses, who have every right to both own their property and to paint them in whatever colors they wish. The state’s “police powers” do not include the authority to make ineffective laws that do not, and cannot, have a real effect either public order or safety. Such legislation is unconstitutional even without recourse to arguments about the rights of property owners. The same principles apply to firearms legislation.
As a retired LE officer, let me say that all they are doing with all these petty restrictions is violating the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution. As LE, we were required to take an oath to protect the Constitution of the United Sates. That was to protect against those foreign & DOMESTICS who would violate it.
If I were in the position, ALL those in LE who were violating the Constitution would be arrested & charged with Treason. We would clean out the various ranks of departments where they have been infiltrated by enemies of the State.
Larry, you make a good point that has puzzled me for some time. I have often wondered why the officers who serve in the Secret Service, having taken the oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, do not arrest the president who has constantly violated those laws. Is he above those laws? If that is the way it is treated we are really in deep trouble.
As a retired law enforcement officer, I know that I always had first and foremost in my mind the oath I took to uphold and protect the Constitution of the USA. While I respect McCauley for his decision to quit rather than continue supporting a state government like Maryland’s present one, what I question is why did he not answer the question that had been asked of him before resigning publicly, with an explanation as to why he was doing so. I’ll admit that I never made the rank I could have, because I was constantly taking on the establishment when I thought they were wrong. In fact, I was fired from two departments, and hired the next day by another the next day. I was always told that they admired my work ethic, my arrest and solved stats, and were proud to have me, until they pulled something like Maryland pulled. What scares the H— out of me, is the number of officers that now seem to be fine with trashing the Constitution to keep a job or a rank. What is even more disturbing is that America has a president who has never publicly taken the oath, and has surrounded himself by people that will not take or live by that oath. Wake up America, or we are going to lose all our freedoms while we sit on our duffs watching sports and sucking down beer.
Oath? An oath means nothing to a liar.
As a prior Ohio State Trooper I deplore this action. What clear thinking government official trying to keep a secret would not think that by firing this guy would not keep it quiet? What an idiot.