Taking a page out of the New Jersey anti-Second Amendment playbook, Maryland introduced the new year with its own carry-killer legislation known as the “can’t carry anywhere” bill.
Penned by Democrat Senators Waldstreicher and Lee, Senate Bill 1 prohibits, “a person from knowingly wearing, carrying, or transporting a firearm onto the real property of another unless the other has given certain permission.”
Not satisfied with banning lawfully-owned firearms from private property, the authors used the well-known tactic of trying to define the general public as a sensitive place using a novel, new category of “public accommodations”.
“A person may not knowingly wear, carry, or transport a firearm within 100 feet of a place of public accommodation.”
The list of possible locations that include public accommodations is exhaustive:
- an inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment that provides lodging to transient guests;
- a restaurant, cafeteria, lunchroom, lunch counter, soda fountain, or other facility principally engaged in selling food or alcoholic beverages for consumption on or off the premises, including a facility located on the premises of a retail establishment or gasoline station;
- a motion picture house, theater, concert hall, sports arena, stadium, or other place of exhibition or entertainment;
- a retail establishment that: (i) is operated by a public or private entity; and (ii) offers goods, services, entertainment, recreation, or transportation; or
- an establishment:
(i) 1. that is physically located within the premises of any other establishment covered by this subtitle; or 2. within the premises of which any other establishment covered by this subtitle is physically located; and
(ii) that holds itself out as serving patrons of the covered establishment.
The list encompasses virtually “everywhere” one might be in public. This tactic has been expressly forbidden by the Supreme Court Bruen decision, but has nonetheless been the preferred method of liberal states rebelling against the Supreme Court decision.
Such bills often disproportionately affect minorities who live in high-density population areas. Reacting to the bill on Reddit, user “JayVulture” wrote, “All I can say, as a black gun owner in Maryland, is that these Democrats really have no idea how bipartisan this topic is. When they’re on the couch wondering why it’s been years since any of them have touched a political seat, I want them to know this was the reason.”
In December of 2022, New Jersey also passed a carry-killer bill whose list of “sensitive places” was so broad that the sponsor couldn’t name a single location where a lawful carry-permit holder could conceal carry other than his own property (excluding, ironically enough, one’s own vehicle).
That bill was promptly challenged in court by two lawsuits brought separately by a coalition of Second-Amendment rights groups. The lawsuits have subsequently been consolidated and a TRO issued, as previously reported on News2A.com
Maryland currently has both a Democrat Governor and a Democrat supermajority in its Legislature. The bill, if passed and signed into law, is slated to go into effect on October 1, 2023.
