Maryland House Democrats introduced a controversial gun safety bill requiring gun owners to forfeit their ability to wear or carry without firearm liability insurance.
Introduced by Del. Terri Hill, D-Howard County, the legislation would prohibit the “wear or carry” of a gun anywhere in the state unless the individual has obtained a liability insurance policy of at least $300,000.
"A person may not wear or carry a firearm unless the person has obtained and it covered by liability insurance issued by an insurer authorized to do business in the State under the Insurance Article to cover claims for property damage, bodily injury, or death arising from an accident resulting from the person’s use or storage of a firearm or up to $300,000 for damages arising from the same incident, in addition to interest and costs,” the proposed Maryland legislation reads.
Unconstitutional, can’t require insurance to exercise a right.
That’s an interesting point. I’m curious though does right to bear arms mean to carry freely or to simply own? If you need a permit to open carry in some places, isn’t that already evidence you can restrict the right in certain ways?
Honestly asking because I don’t know.
Owning is very clearly “keeping” which would make utilizing in the defense of yourself and others “bearing.” There’s two parts to the right and own is only one of them.
That’s not exactly right. You can’t require an unduly onerous burden on the exercise or enjoyment of a right. However, you can abridge rights for reasons which may demonstrate furtherance of a government interest at a given level, that level is dependent on the right being abridged and the mechanism of abridgement.
All they have to do is, instead of calling it a “law”, call it “militia regulation” instead. “Militia” is the entire arms bearing populace; if you own a gun, you are, by definition, part of the Militia. And the 2nd amendment doesn’t merely say “everyone has a gun”; it does so in context of maintaining a “well regulated militia”. All the right to “keep and bear arms” does is prevent them from requiring we store our arms in a central armory (which was one of the controversies over the matter in England when the right was in development).
I would say we also have a right to own a car. That doesn’t prevent them from requiring we maintain the capacity to bear responsibility if we should accidentally exercise that right improperly.
My favorite quote from Thomas Jefferson concerning the 2nd amendment: “You know I got that thang on me. Pull up”
You forgot the “well regulated” part of the “well regulated militia”
That’s why we even have gun laws in the first place. Congress and state governments have the authority to do so.
That’s not what regulated means in this context.
“A well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state” implies that without a standing army, we need well armed citizens.
Regulated in this case, means supplied.
However it’s so fucking vague, it literally guarantees the right to keep and bear arms completely separately from the militia statement.
You could argue that the national guard is the militia, and they’re very well regulated. But it doesn’t matter, because the second amendment doesn’t clarify who gets to have guns, just that everybody should be able to keep and carry them. You could even argue that restricting access to firearms for convicted felons is unconstitutional because the second amendment doesn’t fucking clarify.
It’s poorly written, is what I’m getting at.
Super vague. You could interpret that regulated to mean that the militia needs to be skilled or trained as well, which would support OPs opinion.
Edit: typo
It’s already regulated.
This is a restriction for poor people and nothing more.
Agreed! WHERE in the Constitution does it say we can REGULATE our Right to Bear Arms? NOWHERE!
It’s already regulated.
This is a restriction for poor people and nothing more.
Any precedent you can cite on this?
Google “poll tax”.
Poll taxes had to be explicitly banned in the 24th Amendment which is specific to voting. This is actually an argument against the idea that it’s unconstitutional, because an amendment wouldn’t have been necessary if it was already unconstitutional to force payment to exercise a right.
Good example, thanks.
Common sense?
I find “common sense” to be used almost exclusively when a person can’t come up with an actually reason to support their point. This is especially true here because there is very little about constitutional law that is as easy as “common sense.”
Lmao. Sounds like you don’t understand what a constitutional right is.
The best argument you can come up with is “common sense” but it’s me who doesn’t understand constitutional rights. Lol It’s still early, but I’m going to bet that this is the projection of the day.