Jeff Johnson, CNSNews.com
Friday, Jan. 3, 2003

Maryland on Wednesday became the first state in the nation to require that only new handguns with internal trigger locks could be sold in the state. Only six handguns meet the law's standards, and those firearms are relatively expensive, compared to weapons commonly purchased by civilians for self-defense.

Gun control supporters claim the law will protect children from accidental firearm discharges

"This will save lives," claimed Matt Fenton, president of Marylanders Against Handgun Abuse Inc.

But supporters of the Second Amendment believe the law's proponents have another goal.

"It will [reduce] our handgun sales by 80 to 85 percent," Jack Barnhart, owner of Outdoor Sportsman Inc. in Essex, told the Baltimore Daily Record. "It's going to have a tremendous impact."

Barnhart called the law "foolish" and noted that more than 70 percent of his handgun customers bought the weapon to protect their families at home.

"They won't leave it in the house with the lock on," he said. "Imagine being awakened in the middle of the night and having to fiddle with a lock when confronting an intruder."

Republican Gov.-elect Robert Ehrlich promised to review all of Maryland's stringent gun restrictions if elected, but some Maryland gun owners are not waiting to see if that will happen. At least two lawsuits have been prepared challenging the trigger lock law.

So-Called 'Smart-Guns' Law in New Jersey

New Jersey will become the first state to require so-called "smart gun" technology, though the law won't actually take effect for at least three years. The technology to block a handgun from firing unless it is held by an authorized user does not exist, according to gun manufacturers and safety experts.

Self-defense groups and advocates of the Second Amendment have complained that legislators demonstrated their lack of faith in the yet-to-be-created technology when they exempted law enforcement officers from the restrictions.

"We are offended by the dual standard and the implication that somehow our lives are less precious than those of our fine law enforcement officers, who have been granted exemption from this legislation due to reliability concerns," said the New Jersey Coalition for Self Defense (NJCSD) in a press release Tuesday.

"When this technology is good enough for the police, then and only then will we consider it worthy for our use as well," the release stated.

On the eve of the law's enactment, one political candidate said he was also opposed to the so-called "smart-gun" law, for the same reason.

"It exempts police officers from the law, and allows them to purchase cheaper, non-smart gun weapons," said Albert Zeller, II, a Constitution Party candidate for New Jersey's District 17 Senate seat in 2003. "[That] makes it seem as though the police are worth more than the common citizen."

NJCSD noted that in requiring that that unproven technology be incorporated into handguns, Democrat Gov. James E. McGreevey and his supporters were ignoring a fundamental rule of engineering.

"A simpler mechanism is always more reliable than a more complex one," the group observed. "In light of this, we can predict that it will be only a matter of time till you see headlines similar to 'Mother dies defending her children during home invasion due to [smart gun's] dead battery.'"

NJCSD noted that firearms are used by civilians in self-defense as many as 2 million times a year, and predicted the law would eventually make it more difficult for citizens to defend themselves from criminals. The law mandates that the restriction cannot be enforced until three years after the state's attorney general rules that the technology "works safely."

CNSNews.com

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
DNC
Guns/Gun Control
Phillips/Constitution Party
RNC
Editor's note:
FREE - 4 Months to NewsMax.com`s Magazine. Check It Out - Get four FREE