Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley on Thursday signed into law one of the United States’ toughest gun control measures, even as opponents vowed to overturn it.
The legislation prompted by the Newtown, Connecticut, school massacre requires handgun buyers to undergo safety training and submit fingerprints to obtain a license.
It also bans the sale of 45 types of assault weapons, which have been linked to at least 461 U.S. deaths since 2004, according to the governor’s office.
Opponents of the changes say they aren’t planning to seek any sort of public vote/referendum on the bill, but will instead offer support to an NRA lawsuit which challenges the legality of the new regulations. Similar legislation has been passed in Colorado, New York, and Connecticut following a recent uptick in mass shooting incidents.
54% of the Senate voted for background checks, and they together represented roughly 63% of America’s population. But because the Senate is not a democratic body, majority support wasn’t enough to win that vote. The world’s greatest deliberative body, ladies and gentlemen.
There is a surprising, so far, a surprising recurrence of suggestions that we have universal background checks. Not just close the gun show loophole, but total, universal background checks, including private sales.Joe Biden re: the proposals being considered by his gun control task force. John Hickenlooper, the Democratic Governor of Colorado, echoed this same sentiment today. In addition, Biden said that he’s “never quite heard as much talk about the need to do something about high-capacity magazines as I’ve heard spontaneously from every group that we’ve met with so far,” and said that the president has given him until Tuesday to present a set of recommendations as to how best prevent future incidents like the one in Newtown. source
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