HB3 directs the Maryland State Police Gun Center to track all firearms surrendered under final protective orders and creates a statewide database for law enforcement agencies to report information on individuals who surrender firearms.
The Senate passed HB3 on April 7, 2023, by a vote of 41 to 2. We have assigned pluses to the nays because state and federal laws prohibiting or tracking firearm possession by individuals subject to protective orders are inherently unconstitutional. They amount to blanket “searches and seizures” that automatically disarm an entire class of citizens. Protective orders often pertain to civil—not criminal— matters, but regardless, every law-abiding citizen, including those who have made just restitution for their past wrongs, retains an “unalienable” individual right to self-defense. Persons not guilty of a violent capital or first-degree crime (e.g., murder or rape) need not suffer a permanent loss of their constitutional privileges or immunities. The Second Amendment guarantees “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” and the Fifth and the 14th Amendments prevent “any State” from depriving or denying “any person” of their “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”