Maryland has just passed some of the most sweeping gun control laws in the nation. Governor Martin O’Malley has taken advantage of large majorities of Democrats in both houses of the State legislature in Annapolis and has pushed through restrictions on so-called “assault weapons” as well as high-capicity magazines and restrictive background check procedures including a fingerprint provision.
In an exclusive interview this morning on Washington DC’s WMAL-FM, Senate Minority Leader E.J. Pipkin (R) slammed the governor and accused him of “checking off the boxes” on a list of progressive policies in order to ready a 2016 presidential bid.
“The true purpose here was to enact a gun ban, not a gun restriction, and they created so many hurdles in the bill and in how the different parts of the bill interact, in effect it’s a gun ban,” Pipkin told me and my co-host Brian Wilson.
Pipkin went further in predicting a devastating consequence of the sweeping new law: “I am absolutely convinced, as we sit here this morning, that this bill will not save one life, as a matter of fact, given its provisions it may end up costing lives given the fact that people ability to defend themselves is being challenged here.”