GUN CONTROL

GOVERNOR

"More Progress for More Prisoners,"

No Progress for Victims of Domestic Violence

Another session is winding down in Annapolis, and once again, Governor Martin O'Malley and his cronies in the General Assembly have failed to do anything about domestic violence. The only "domestic violence" bills that passed were 2 thinly-disguised gun control bills which will actually set back the cause when O'Malley signs them into law.

Allow me to put politics and hyperbole aside for a moment (unlike our elected officials) to explain.

The theory of a law to remove guns from the hands of violent domestic abusers was a credible one. And such a law could have been passed without violating the second amendment rights of innocent gun owners.

Instead, O'Malley & his gang decided to push two in-your-face, old fashioned gun control bills through the House and Senate.

Here's the 2-part problem. What I and other advocates for victims of domestic violence would like is to change the standard for issuing a protective order from "clear and convincing evidence" to "a preponderance of the evidence." The reason is that judges should err on the side of caution. And if a suspected abuser must only stay away from his alleged victim for the duration of the order, his Constitutional rights have not been violated. So if it turns out he was falsely accused, his legal injury is minimal.

Now, to justify the new gun control bills, advocates stress that orders require "clear and convincing evidence." So apparently, those advocates have abandoned the quest for easier-to-obtain protective orders at the altar of Gun Control. This is a huge mistake. It could well have doomed the chances of changing the standard. I don't even believe that victims will have a "false sense of security." Because they know that any abuser willing to hurt or kill won't have any trouble finding a different weapon - or an illegal gun - where a criminal usually gets them. And trust me, that's not at a gun store.

This is what happens when partisan politics and secondary agendas are injected into the domestic violence debate. It seems that some want to use the issue to further ideological goals rather than the health and welfare of victims.

Witness the defeat of a bill which would have given victims of domestic violence the ability to carry a concealed weapon.

And then, surprise surprise, O'Malley investing valuable time fighting the proposed law allowing D.C. residents to buy guns in Maryland.

It's the usual story in O'Malley's Maryland: keep power in the hands of violent criminals, and out of the hands of the innocent. Courtesy of your Gun Control Governor.

The other day, O'Malley said Maryland wouldn't be Maryland without the Preakness.

So I ask you, what is Maryland without the U.S. Constitution?