The headline is accurate, but with limited space, I couldn’t really note that they didn’t do it by choice. See, Montgomery County decided to make a whole lot of places gun-free zones. As this is Maryland, it’s likely they didn’t figure the state would have any issues with what they were doing. After all, they love gun control there.
But they went too far. They flew too close to the anti-gun sun, and the state Supreme Court slapped them down.
That meant they needed to make some…adjustments, which is what they just did.
To comply with a court ruling, the Montgomery County Council voted 10-1 Tuesday to pare back some of its restrictions on guns.
Among other changes, it shortened the list of places near which a person can carry guns and removed a restriction on purchasing and selling ghost guns in the presence of a minor.
These changes do not significantly affect the county’s gun restrictions, but rather tweak them to comply with the state’s existing laws.
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- Banned all firearms within 100 yards of most public spaces — including schools, houses of worship, courthouses, libraries and parks — but removed a ban on them in the vicinity of hospitals, child care centers and long-term care centers. This change was made because the state has its own law that bans firearms within those establishments
- Created an exemption on the above ban for people who are traveling through the county and could be driving on a public highway with a gun or are driving on a road within 100 yards of a public space.
- Bans gifting, selling, renting or lending guns, ammunition and gun parts to minors, but removes a provision that prohibited these activities pertaining to ghost guns in the presence of minors.
Is this a victory for gun rights? Hardly. This is nothing but Montgomery County trying to comply with the state’s regulations on the matter and nothing else. They’re restricting as much as they think they can simply because they can.