Fine Legislative Representatives:

I have drafted this email this evening to you fine folks to make an ardent and urgent request. Right now, in the Maryland House judiciary committee there lie several legislative proposals for review and I would like to bring a few of them to your attention. But first, I would like to give you a little bit of background about me and my connection and interest in the state:

I am a former citizen of the state of Maryland, having moved out of the state about 3 years ago and currently residing and voting in the state of Colorado. My maternal family resides in Montgomery County, my paternal family resides almost entirely in Prince Georges County, the city of Laurel primarily. I love my family dearly and visit them from time to time.

I am a gun owner in the state of Colorado. I employ fingerprint-activated handgun safes, and use a handgun with multiple integrated safeties with a "Safe Action" trigger system which is specifically constructed to allow intentional firing only. This combination of safety features ensures that I am using a safe handgun which is itself stored in a secure manner which still provides proper utility and rapid access in a life or death situation. I personally have completed NRA basic handgun training in addition to numerous additional hours of coursework with one on one instruction.

I need not tell you fine folks about the dangers of some of the areas around DC these days: The escalating crime in Montgomery and PG Counties. I need not recall to you representatives the violence I have seen and experienced while visiting my dad in Laurel, the attempted break-in of his mobile home which I was forced to fend off with only a phone and broken chair because I was disallowed from carrying my legally owned, licensed, and permitted firearms from Colorado. I read the news back home and see these and similar stories almost daily.

I tell you this so that you may understand that I am someone with a carefully considered position of safe and effective firearms ownership and vested long-term interest in the gun related laws of the state of Maryland.

To this end, I would like to highlight the following current bills before your committee and earnestly solicit your support in ensuring that they are put to a positive vote:

12 (Repeal Ballistic Fingerprinting)

While I am all for the safety and security of handgun use and the people who use those handguns, I believe that positive identification and recording of biometric information oversteps the security and public interest in the safety of the state by effectually disallowing other states responsible gun owners from using firearms facilities in the state of Maryland.

14 (Repeal Integral lock requirement)

In a self defense situation, research shows that there is a biological response under stress which inhibits fine motor skills and causes a certain dilation in motor function. Given this biological information, it would seem to me counter productive to require that a citizen's self defense tool be made ineffectual by a device which requires that same level of function that has been proven near impossible to negotiate in a high stress situation as that which would be created in a home invasion or an attempted violent crime.

529 (MD Constitutional Amendment - Declaration of Right to Keep and Bear Arms)

I will not speak much to this particular item as I am sure you are well aware of the crime in your constituencies and also of the reductions in violent crime that states enacting a positive right of the citizens to bear arms within their own homes have seen.

1382 (CCW Reciprocity with other states)

While Maryland may not currently have a permitting system which would allow granting of general permits to citizenry without specific and manifest cause, I believe it irresponsible of the State of Maryland to refuse to recognize the implied trust of other states via the Concealed Carry device. I would like to see the state of Maryland create a reciprocity function which ensures that any state which grants a permit based on a specific and appropriate level of knowledge and training on the part of the applicant.

Further, I would urge you fine folks to oppose HB1367 (the Assault Weapon Ban bill). The simple fact of the matter is that statistically, LEGAL gun owners in the united states are one of the safest and most law abiding segments of the population. Less than 4% of all violent crime in the united states is committed with assault weapons. Federal studies have shown that the nationally enacted assault weapons ban previously in place had virtually no effect on the overall rate of violent crime in the united states.

I would like to reach to you fine group of legislators and ask that you take a good look at these provisions. I would like to implore you to be a part of enacting laws which provide safe, effective provisions whereby the citizens of the state of Maryland, and those visiting the state, may engage in viable, proper, and correct ownership and carriage of handguns for self defense within the state. I thank you in advance for your time and assistance on this behalf.

Wayne S. Anderson
Resident of Brighton, Colorado
Born in Silver Spring, Maryland