ANNAPOLIS | Democrats are pushing bills to ban guns on college campuses to help prevent suicides and accidental deaths, but opponents argue that banning guns on campus will make students and faculty vulnerable in a future mass shooting.
The legislation — sponsored in the House by Delegate Ben Barnes and in the Senate by Sen. Richard Madaleno, both Montgomery Democrats — would bar anyone from having a deadly weapon like a gun or a knife at any public college campus in the state.
Among the bill’s supporters: Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who came to Annapolis Wednesday to convince lawmakers that such a policy would prevent unnecessary deaths.
“We’ve seen across the country a lot of violent acts committed with firearms,” said Mr. Van Hollen. “There are sometimes pieces of gun legislation, I know, that get people worked up. But these are common-sense measures.”
Mr. Van Hollen also has been pushing for a ban on gun sales to anyone on the federal no-fly list. The General Assembly also is considering such a ban, but the bill has faced challenges on its constitutionality over concerns that being put on the list could violate due process.
Maryland has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. In response to the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the legislature in 2013 passed a sweeping assault weapons ban that is under review after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled that some provisions could be unconstitutional.
The Weapon-Free Higher Education Zones bill was debated vigorously on the House floor and considered in a Senate committee Wednesday.
“We in Appropriations believe it should be a crime, a crime, to bring a gun on campus in and of itself,” Mr. Barnes said, highlighting FBI statistics that show sexual assault rates increased when guns were allowed on campus.
Some Democrats voiced concern about the bill’s feasibility.
Delegate C.T. Wilson, Charles County Democrat, said the bill’s language would deem as violators a parent with a license to carry a concealed handgun picking up a child from college or someone with a hunting rifle in the trunk of a car driving along a road that happens to go through a campus.
Sen. James Brochin, Baltimore County Democrat, brought up a key Republican point — that the legislation would do little to prevent mass shootings.
“If somebody wants to come on campus and do something like this, do you really, honestly, in your heart believe that because you’ve added two words to a bill and all of a sudden, they’ll be like, ’There’s a law against this, I think I’ve got to change my mind?’” Mr. Brochin said.
State Sen. Michael J. Hough, Frederick Republican, argued that mass shooters look for gun-free zones where nobody will be able to defend themselves.
“The best way to stop a bad guy is a good guy with a gun,” he said.
Mr. Madaleno said the purpose of his bill is less about mass shootings and more about preventing suicides, arguing that people in their late teens and early 20s are nine times more likely to commit suicide than any other age group.
“This isn’t about stopping the deranged person, the mentally ill person that decides they are going to go on a shooting spree and take out whoever they happen to find,” Mr. Madaleno said. “This is more about keeping weapons away from people that are at a potential stage in their life where they are going to make a bad decision, about a suicide, about [someone] they believe has been cheating on them, something like that.”
Supporters said the bill may not be able to prevent violence, but the legislature has to at least try.
“Every little bit helps, I think,” said Dave Eberhardt of the Baltimore Center on Nonviolence. “They may not do much. But I’m an idealist.”
The National Rifle Association said the bill is a blatant violation of the Second Amendment.
“You have a fundamental right to purchase and possess a firearm in your home,” said Shannon Alford, Maryland liaison for the NRA. “If your home happens to be on a college campus, this bill would deprive you of that right.”
The Senate committee also considered various other gun bills, such as one to inform people convicted of domestic violence that they must surrender their guns upon conviction, and another to prevent toy gun manufacturers from creating toys that look realistic and can be mistaken for a real gun.
Pro-gun advocates, including the NRA, said they supported those types of bills because people who had been tried and convicted of dangerous crimes should not be given a gun.
The FBI watch list gun ban will be officially considered by the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee on March 16.
• Anjali Shastry can be reached at ashastry@washingtontimes.com.
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