2nd amendment – Sandy Rosenberg

The same legal advice

March 2, 2022 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

Over the years, I’ve written quite a few letters seeking legal advice from the Attorney General of Maryland.

As the state’s chief legal officer, his counsel on a bill I’ve introduced is respected by my colleagues.

His advice on a Supreme Court decision is also respected.

That’s why I introduced House Bill 1040.

The Supreme Court recently heard a case regarding the 2nd Amendment.

The decision is expected to affect Maryland’s law, which requires an individual to obtain a license to wear and carry a regulated firearm.

My bill would require the AG to write the Governor, the Senate President, and the House Speaker on the legal implications of the court’s decision for our law.

Both the executive and the legislative branches would receive the same advice.

“Mail ballots, they cheat.”

April 10, 2020 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

There once was bipartisan agreement on voter fraud.

After the counting of hanging chads in Florida, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act in 2002.

That law lists acceptable forms of identification if a voter is challenged on Election Day.

They are an individual’s voter registration card, Social Security card, or valid driver’s license; any government-issued identification card; any employee identification card that contains a photograph of the individual; and a copy of a current bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows the name and current address of the individual.

Maryland enacted these protections in 2006. I introduced the bill.

In Texas, on the other hand, a permit to carry a concealed weapon is acceptable identification but not a student’s college ID.

“Mail ballots, they cheat,” said President Trump this week. “They are fraudulent in many cases.“

Under Maryland law, a voter may designate someone to pick up and deliver an absentee ballot, in a writing signed by the voter under penalty of perjury. That individual must also execute an affidavit under penalty of perjury that the ballot was delivered to the voter who submitted the application; marked and placed in an envelope by the voter or with assistance, as allowed by regulation, in the agent’s presence; and returned to the local board of elections by the agent.

In addition, a voter who requires assistance in casting an absentee ballot by reason of disability, inability to write, or inability to read the ballot may be assisted by any individual other than a candidate who is on that ballot, the voter’s employer or an agent of the employer, or an officer or agent of the voter’s union.

Let me know if you have an additional way to reduce the possibility of fraud, without imposing an undue burden on an individual’s right to vote – in person or by mail.

—-

I wrote a letter to the Baltimore Sun about limits on our First and Second Amendment rights during this pandemic.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/readers-respond/bs-ed-rr-second-amendment-letter-20200409-zvohb4626vb3djkzg3vsw2vp4u-story.html

Justice Scalia on the 2nd Amendment

February 16, 2018 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2018 Legislative Diary | No Comments

In Heller v. District of Columbia, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the following in his majority opinion:

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.

From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.

For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues.

Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment , nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

(citations omitted)

Not unlimited or speechless

April 2, 2013April 3, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

I was ready to quote Justice Scalia liberally.

During tonight’s floor debate, one of my colleagues said, “The rights protected by the 2^nd Amendment are inalienable. They can’t be restricted by the governor, the legislature, or the courts.”

Justice Scalia ruled otherwise in the majority opinion in Heller v. District of Columbia.

“Like most rights,” he wrote, “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.”

“Should I respond?” I asked my seatmate, Delegate McIntosh.

“Wait til tomorrow when the final vote on the bill will be taken,” she advised.

I agreed.

—

I wrote too soon.

Shortly after I posted the above, one of my colleagues said that our Second Amendment right came from God and is unalienable.

I had to speak.

“None of the protections in the Bill of Rights is absolute. The first Amendment says that ‘Congress shall make no law’ but there are limitations on the rights of free speech and a free press.”

And I did quote Justice Scalia.

Translated from legalese

March 20, 2013March 20, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

More than once this session, one of my Judiciary Committee colleagues has declared that the 2^nd Amendment prohibits regulation of weapons in common use.

When he said it again in a small group meeting about the Governor’s gun bill, I found this excerpt from Justice Scalia’s majority opinion in the Supreme Court decision that struck down a ban on handgun possession in one’s home.

We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller [a prior Supreme Court decision] said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.” We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.”

Translated from legalese: Dangerous and unusual weapons can be prohibited, even if they have been in common use.

I read the decision out loud and told my colleague that his statement was misleading.

He disagreed.

I expect we will discuss this again – in full committee and on the House floor.

Guns and the law

March 2, 2013 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2013 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Around 10:30 last night, I read the bill.

The hearing on the Governor’s Firearm Safety Act began at 1:00.

Initially, I was turned off by the opponents’ bogus claims that any regulation of gun possession, including an ownership fee, violated the 2^nd Amendment.

These people surely aren’t absolutists about other protections in the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court isn’t.

For example, a tax on newspapers does not violate the freedom of the press, unless it targets them for different treatment than other businesses.

(I read those cases around midnight. The bill hearing would last until 3:00.)

As the hearing wore on, there were fewer constitutional claims and more personal stories.

Some declared that they would leave Maryland if the bill became law. Many others said it would make them criminals.

Massive civil disobedience? I hadn’t read about that happening in New York after a law was enacted there in January.

So I read the Governor’s bill.

Assault weapons would be banned on October 1. If you already owned such weapons, they would not be taken away from you, but you would have to register them.

Gun owners would become criminals only if they chose not to obey the law. That’s not the same as saying that the bill would make you a criminal.

Annapolis etiquette says that you don’t question the accuracy of testimony by a member of the public.

However, I told a Republican colleague that if he made that false claim during the debate on the bill in committee or the House floor, I would not be silent.

My Key Issues:

Tag: 2nd amendment