Texas shooting demonstrates why Maryland’s ban on assault weapons must stand | COMMENTARY
It will take weeks, if not months, to get a complete picture of exactly what happened in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday when an 18-year-old opened fire in the Robb Elementary School killing at least 19 children and two adults before he was killed by police. The gut-wrenching terror as youngsters ran for their lives. The agony of families learning their children’s fate. And the terrible familiarity of it all in a nation still reeling from the murder of 10 Black people in a race-related mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, on May 14: A disaffected teen with easy access to a powerful weapon better suited to a battlefield than a grocery store or, God help us, a public school classroom has become yet another American-made mass murderer.
The terrible tragedy raises all kinds of questions from the mental health of the killer, the inadequacy of community-based psychiatric care and the bullying by classmates that might have contributed to his instability to the failure of those around him to recognize this potential threat. But one element stands out above so many others: easy access to assault weapons.
The military-style rifles have such features as high-capacity magazines, pistol grips, flash suppressors, barrel shrouds and the like that are designed to allow a shooter to spray bullets quickly and indiscriminately into a crowd. These are not components one needs in self-defense, not the essentials required for target practice at the local shooting range, not an asset to the average deer hunter. They are, however, the common tools of mass shooters. It’s been estimated that about one-quarter of such incidents have involved individuals armed with assault weapons.
In 2013, then-Gov. Martin O’Malley and the Maryland General Assembly took steps to ban these weapons after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which left 26 people dead in Newtown, Connecticut. That shooter killed himself. He, too, was described as suffering some form of mental illness. He, too, had used an assault weapon. But Congress took no meaningful national action on gun control. The grip of the National Rifle Association and other Second Amendment absolutists proved too firm. It was up to states like Maryland, New York and Connecticut and advocacy groups to push forward toward common sense solutions. It has been a difficult struggle since.
Now, what modest progress was made in Maryland on gun control stands teetering on the edge. A challenge to the state’s assault weapons ban, previously rejected by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, remains on the list for possible review by the U.S. Supreme Court. Why? Experts believe that the conservative majority is ready to open the door to loosening restrictions on gun ownership and possession but must act first on New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. That’s the case heard by the Supreme Court last November that could potentially result in dramatic loosening of so-called “concealed carry” laws. New York’s long-standing requirement that gun owners have “proper cause” to carry firearms all the time. Maryland has similar restrictions.
Within weeks, the Supreme Court may issue a ruling that not only damages concealed carry restrictions in New York, Maryland and elsewhere but provides a Second Amendment justification for further loosening of gun laws like the assault weapons ban. So it’s entirely possible that before the last victim is memorialized in Uvalde, the court will not only be opening the doors for deranged individuals to carry around firearms without state-level restriction but soon providing an opportunity to make military-grade firearms more readily available to terrorists as well, perhaps eventually through the pending Maryland case, Dominic Bianchi et al. v. Brian E. Frosh et al.
We have long believed that conservatives are fundamentally mistaken about the Second Amendment’s intent as outlined in 2008′s District of Columbia v. Heller which claimed the right to bear arms as an individual right that “shall not be infringed” instead of what the Constitution actually says, which is that it was needed for purposes of a “well regulated Militia.” Yet ignoring precedent and history (not to mention public opinion) seems to be in fashion with the current majority based on its potential ruling on abortion rights.
The United States is better than this. How much longer will we tolerate easy access to military-grade weaponry by people who should not have access to guns that can kill a classroom full of children in seconds? That is the real insanity — to bear witness to such awful events and then do nothing to prevent others from doing the exact same thing next week, next month, next year.
Baltimore Sun editorial writers offer opinions and analysis on news and issues relevant to readers. They operate separately from the newsroom.
