Maryland Continues to Lead Anti-Second Amendment Jihad

In Dante’s Inferno, the gates of Hell are inscribed with the Latin phrase, “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.” Translated into English, the iconic phrase reads, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Today, however, this phrase would be quite apt on all signs announcing the crossover into the state of Maryland, with one little tweak: “Abandon all hope, gun owners who enter here.”

One year ago last week, Florida-resident John Filippidis and his family were traveling through Maryland when his vehicle was pulled over by a Maryland Transportation Authority police officer. Filippidis, a concealed carry permit holder in his home state, was unsure of the reason for the stop, but as he quickly discovered, little about what would happen next had to do with his driving. According to Filippidis, as reported by the Tampa Tribune, the MDTA officer tailed his vehicle for 10 minutes before eventually signaling for him to pull over. After taking his license and registration for a check, the officer returned with demands that Filippidis exit the vehicle, assume the position, and tell him where his firearm was located. Meanwhile, his family was separated in the back of police cruisers while officers ransacked his car looking for his personal firearm that he had thought ahead of time to leave at home, in case of this very situation.

An internal review of the incident by the MDTA determined the stop to have followed protocol, and the search of Filippidis’ car to be “reasonable” based on nothing more than the “conflicting” statements made by his shaken wife about the location of the gun, as well as the officer’s belief that he smelled the odor of marijuana in the car. Not surprisingly, the exhaustive search of the vehicle turned-up neither firearm, nor marijuana or related paraphernalia. Instead, Filippidis was let go, after hours of harassment, with merely a warning for speeding.

As the Washington Times notes in its recent coverage of this incident, there are a growing number of stories from Maryland in which out-of-state concealed carry permit holders have been subjected to the same harassment as Filippidis; raising suspicion that the state with a long-standing reputation for being hostile to gun rights, is using the Second Amendment as a basis to harass otherwise law-abiding citizens for purposes that have little, if anything, to do with actual law enforcement. Rather, this outrageous behavior is yet another example of police departments motivated by a need for greater control, and more power to justify their existence.

As I noted last month about the death of Eric Garner, government at all levels has become so big and so costly, that revenues are never deemed sufficient to meet those perceived “needs.” This is a major reason why police departments such as the MDTA are driven to find ever more creative – and liberty-stifling – ways to justify their existence; such as outlawing the selling of a cigarette by one person to another, or arresting people for traveling with a legally owned firearm that, when crossing the border, suddenly did not adhere to Maryland’s anti-firearm policy.

The proliferation of police departments we see in recent years -- not only every geographic entity has to have one, but every state school and many state government departments and transportation authorities -- increases this pressure to prove they are “real” cops and thus enlarge their budgets; and what better scalps to tack on the wall in Maryland than those of gun owners.

Since the 2008 landmark Supreme Court decision in Heller v. District of Columbia, which for the first time in modern case law defined the Second Amendment as an individual right, opponents of constitutional gun rights have faced a number of setbacks in courts and local legislatures. To compensate for these setbacks, gun-grabbers have sought to push their agendas through means such as legislative chicanery or outright deception in public relations campaigns.

Regulations and state-sanctioned intimidation to curb speech rights are said to have a “chilling effect” on speech rights. What we appear to be witnessing in Maryland, and no doubt in other anti-gun states across the nation, is a deliberate attempt to “chill” Second Amendment rights as well; by making the legal exercise of one’s natural right to keep and bear arms so confusing and legally treacherous that many citizens choose not to do so. Yet, rather than surrender this precious right to the bullies in government who twist and contort their authority in pursuit of a political agenda, we should take the fight to the courts and the voting booth. At the very least, out-of-state travelers can refuse to give Maryland revenue by avoiding the state altogether.

http://www.theacru.org/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterproductive/

ACRU
Protecting the civil rights of all Americans.

Harvard Study: Gun Control Is Counterproductive
POSTED BY ACRU

TUESDAY, MAY 8TH, 2007
I’ve just learned that Washington, D.C.’s petition for a rehearing of the Parker case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was denied today. This is good news. Readers will recall in this case that the D.C. Circuit overturned the decades-long ban on gun ownership in the nation’s capitol on Second Amendment grounds.

However, as my colleague Peter Ferrara explained in his National Review Online article following the initial decision in March, it looks very likely that the United States Supreme Court will take the case on appeal. When it does so – beyond seriously considering the clear original intent of the Second Amendment to protect an individual’s right to armed self-defense – the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court would be wise to take into account the findings of a recent study out of Harvard.

The study, which just appeared in Volume 30, Number 2 of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (pp. 649-694), set out to answer the question in its title: “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International and Some Domestic Evidence.” Contrary to conventional wisdom, and the sniffs of our more sophisticated and generally anti-gun counterparts across the pond, the answer is “no.” And not just no, as in there is no correlation between gun ownership and violent crime, but an emphatic no, showing a negative correlation: as gun ownership increases, murder and suicide decreases.

The findings of two criminologists – Prof. Don Kates and Prof. Gary Mauser – in their exhaustive study of American and European gun laws and violence rates, are telling:

Nations with stringent anti-gun laws generally have substantially higher murder rates than those that do not. The study found that the nine European nations with the lowest rates of gun ownership (5,000 or fewer guns per 100,000 population) have a combined murder rate three times higher than that of the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership (at least 15,000 guns per 100,000 population).

For example, Norway has the highest rate of gun ownership in Western Europe, yet possesses the lowest murder rate. In contrast, Holland’s murder rate is nearly the worst, despite having the lowest gun ownership rate in Western Europe. Sweden and Denmark are two more examples of nations with high murder rates but few guns. As the study’s authors write in the report:

If the mantra “more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death” were true, broad cross-national comparisons should show that nations with higher gun ownership per capita consistently have more death. Nations with higher gun ownership rates, however, do not have higher murder or suicide rates than those with lower gun ownership. Indeed many high gun ownership nations have much lower murder rates. (p. 661)
Finally, and as if to prove the bumper sticker correct – that “gun don’t kill people, people do” – the study also shows that Russia’s murder rate is four times higher than the U.S. and more than 20 times higher than Norway. This, in a country that practically eradicated private gun ownership over the course of decades of totalitarian rule and police state methods of suppression. Needless to say, very few Russian murders involve guns.

The important thing to keep in mind is not the rate of deaths by gun – a statistic that anti-gun advocates are quick to recite – but the overall murder rate, regardless of means. The criminologists explain:

[P]er capita murder overall is only half as frequent in the United States as in several other nations where gun murder is rarer, but murder by strangling, stabbing, or beating is much more frequent. (p. 663 – emphases in original)
It is important to note here that Profs. Kates and Mauser are not pro-gun zealots. In fact, they go out of their way to stress that their study neither proves that gun control causes higher murder rates nor that increased gun ownership necessarily leads to lower murder rates. (Though, in my view, Prof. John Lott’s More Guns, Less Crime does indeed prove the latter.) But what is clear, and what they do say, is that gun control is ineffectual at preventing murder, and apparently counterproductive.

Not only is the D.C. gun ban ill-conceived on constitutional grounds, it fails to live up to its purpose. If the astronomical murder rate in the nation’s capitol, in comparison to cities where gun ownership is permitted, didn’t already make that fact clear, this study out of Harvard should.

As I read the article it says that the guy was pulled over for speeding 10 mph over. Not to diminish the topic here but had he not been speeding he could have standing to challenge the entire thing.

I have a CCW in my state and carry in my car and on my motorcycle. The gun is always in the center console while the papers for the vehicle are in the glove box. On the bike the gun is within reach but not visible and the papers are in the back. I travel all over the country like this.

When I am in a state that I know does not recognize my permit I make it an absolute point to never speed, I don’t turn right on red (cameras), I always use a turn signal, my vehicle has all the standard equipment and the window tint is as it came with. I obey every law there is. Should I get pulled over for a made up infraction my gps and dash cam record my every move and the speed I was going.

Then if they find my gun and arrest me I have standing to challenge the original infraction for which I was pulled over.

And to another point if a cop is tailing me I either exit the highway, pull into a convenience store or gas station or rest area and get out of the vehicle.

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