You state you do not engage in selective enforcement. Yet I will posit that the failure to prosecute Agent Braga or by the FBI to seriously discipline him is a form of very selective non-enforcement based upon the admitted facts of the case and statements made by some very reliable witnesses including the paramedics responding and the time difference in contacting the paramedics.
As far as enforcement of Maryland's gun laws are concerned, if they are on the books I do enforce them as I have taken an oath to do so. I do not make the laws in Maryland but again, I work with what is given to me.
This is an interesting statement which could have been taken verbatim albiet in German from some of the war crimes trials in WWII. I do not support the arming of those convicted of felonies or those who are were deprived of their rights due to due process of law at the time of their conviction. I have a very real problem with laws passed after the fact of conviction which remove a person's civil rights. An example would be a person who pled guilty to some misdemeanor ten, twenty, or thrity years ago which carried no such suspension of civil rights at the time and now is retroactively deprived of civil rights.
I do apologise about questioning the oath you took as when I took it in the military and when I took it other times it always included the phrasing about the Constitution. Since you are merely sworn to uphold the legislative acts of the state of Maryland not the full law of the land I guess that a law making being a certain race, ethnicity, or creed a crime would be actively enforced by you based upon your statement. To give you a reference and get you thinking I note that Maryland in the past had segrated water fountains. Would you have arrested a black person for drinking from a whites only water fountain? I will give you the benefit of the doubt and presume no.
Would you arrest someone for stating an opinion critical of the Governor or legislature of the state of Maryland if such a law were on the books? If Maryland passed a law making a whole class of firearms illegal to possess would you enforce that law? How about if one of the people you were raiding were a former LEO who had done nothing except fail to turn in such a weapon that he had owned legally prior to enacting such a law.
The DC sniper case brought a whole lot of issues to the fore and there have been a number of problems with the FBI over the past years. among those issues are the FBI letting a person serve much jail time for a murder they knew he did not commit. I would suggest that you check the donut watch list for further information on police issues.
Regarding the BATF, the number of abuses which they have been engaged in over the years is too high to list in a simple response. Their behavior has been over the years extremely unprofessional and some of the FBI agents I know routinely refer to them as "F troop."
I really do not have the time today to get you a specific reference to the ATF raid in Towson. I can suggest that in a work of fiction it is one of the documentable facts in the book Unintended Consequences available at your local library. By getting the date and names there one can then virify the actual date and place of the incident by going to contemporaneous reports from newspaper archives. I am relying on memory and can not today get more specific in references.
These are not always easy questions and I do not claim to have all the answers but you response to me on this thread.
One point you should be aware of Travis McGee was on this forum long before his book was even the germ of an idea in his mind. Now as to the Black helicopter crowd bit. I live in CT in the test flight pattern of the Sikorsky factory. There certainly are "black helicopters" it is the way a person would normally see the infra red camoflage coating amny gornment helicopters are given. Nothing sinister there per se.
As to the simple fact that there are some politicians who would totally subvert the US Constitution, anyone who paid attention to what happens in Congress and the legislature of many East Coast states can clearly see that is a fact.
I am admittedly going to some extremes in my response because I am also a student of history and a nation does not go to an extremis overnight. Nazi Germany went from being the Weimar Republic with a series of incremental laws between 1932 and Crystal Night in 1938. Adolf Hitler came to power by Constitution means and changed the laws to stay in power. Many German police officers joined the Gestapo and enforced some of the most brutal laws because they were only following orders and they did not make the laws.
My concern is clearly that the US Constituition be enforced particularly against corrupt politicians. I do not mean to paint with a broad brush I mean to keep my comments focused on the issues.