Maryland gun applications soar in advance of new gun control law

Of course, gun sales will fall off the cliff as soon as the new law goes into effect and that is exactly what those who pushed the law with all its fees want.  From Fox News:

. . .The Washington Times reported that state police received 85,141 gun-purchase applications this year through Aug. 31. That’s compared with 70,099 applications in all of 2012 and 46,339 applications in 2011. Maryland State Police have increased staffing to cope.
In August 2012, 38 employees were assigned to conduct background checks, but this year 73 employees are doing that work, according to Sgt. Marc Black. Black said 60 temporary staffers are also rotating hours.
“We’re looking at unprecedented numbers,” Maryland State Police Sgt. Marc Black told the newspaper. “We saw this coming.”
So far, officials have processed 46,942 of this year’s applications.
Meanwhile gun dealers say they have been overwhelmed ahead of the law’s Oct. 1 effective date.
“Because of the gun ban, business has been booming,” said Al Koch, store manager at Bart’s Sports World, a Glen Burnie-based gun shop. “It’s been busy like crazy with people making last-minute decisions.” . . . 

A liberal's comments on New Jersey's very nutty gun control laws

Jay R. Lassiter discusses his extraordinary experience in trying to buy BB guns for a nephew and niece.    The piece (available here) is well worth reading.  It contains everything from him not even being allowed to look at BB guns until he has obtained a license to the bizarre licensing process itself.  While the piece mentions the delays in getting the license, the one point that I would have emphasized would be the impact of the delay on people's ability to get a gun for self defense.

Massachusetts' strict gun control laws apparently didn't stop the Tamerlan or Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from getting guns

The Massachusetts' gun control law may be associated with higher violent crime rates, but it didn't stop the Tsarnaev brothers from getting ahold of guns.  From Politico:

The two brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon and engaging in a massive firefight with police last week weren’t licensed to own guns, according to a report. 

Cambridge, Mass., police told Reuters they had not issued a gun license to 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died after the firefight. The police departments in both Cambridge and Dartmouth said they didn’t issue 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a firearms identification card, which would’ve allowed him to own rifles holding less than 10 rounds and shotguns. Dzhokhar, who is under 21, wasn’t eligible for a regular handgun license. . . .

Yet, the number of legal gun owners has fallen from 1.54 million to just over 200,000.  The main point though is that murder and violent crime rates have gone up.

Great piece by Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe: As gun ownership in Massachusetts plummeted, murders and violent crime soared

The whole piece here is highly recommended.  From Sunday's Boston Globe:

IN 1998, Massachusetts passed what was hailed as the toughest gun-control legislation in the country. Among other stringencies, it banned semiautomatic “assault” weapons, imposed strict new licensing rules, prohibited anyone convicted of a violent crime or drug trafficking from ever carrying or owning a gun, and enacted severe penalties for storing guns unlocked. 

“Today, Massachusetts leads the way in cracking down on gun violence,” said Republican Governor Paul Cellucci as he signed the bill into law. “It will save lives and help fight crime in our communities.” Scott Harshbarger, the state’s Democratic attorney general, agreed: “This vote is a victory for common sense and for the protection of our children and our neighborhoods.” One of the state’s leading anti-gun activists, John Rosenthal of Stop Handgun Violence, joined the applause. “The new gun law,” he predicted, “will certainly prevent future gun violence and countless grief.” 

It didn’t. . . .

Jacoby points out that while gun ownership plummeted, murder rates soared.