NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, is vowing legal action should Maryland Gov. Wes Moore sign legislation that would ban the most popular selling handguns. The misguided legislation would unconstitutionally infringe on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Marylanders by prohibiting an entire class of lawfully-made and lawfully-sold handguns, should it be signed into law.
Maryland's legislature recently passed Senate Bill 334 and House Bill 557, which would prohibit the manufacture, sale, offer for sale, purchase, receipt or transfer of certain semiautomatic pistols the state loosely defines as "machine gun convertible pistols." The legislation singles out certain striker-fired handguns because criminals ignore federal and state law to illegally modify these handguns to attach a "machinegun conversion device," or MCD, which is illegal to both possess or to attach to a firearm outside of strict federal licensing.
"To borrow on a line from Jame Carville, whom Democrats revere, 'it's the criminal, stupid,'" said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF's Senior Vice President & General Counsel. "These bills, and similar laws passed in other states, punish law-abiding citizens by infringing on their Second Amendment rights to legally obtain the firearms they choose to protect themselves and their families against criminals who, by definition, have no respect for life or law. Instead of enforcing the law and holding these criminals accountable, Maryland's lawmakers pander to gun control donors and antigun special interests to ban an entire class of firearms, which the U.S. Supreme Court's Heller decision clearly holds violates the U.S. Constitution. Should Governor Moore sign these bills into law, NSSF intends to have Maryland's Attorney General Anthony Brown explain in court why Maryland willfully violates the rights of her citizens and ignores its responsibility to hold criminals accountable."
Under the bills' language, the ban includes pistols with a cruciform trigger bar that Maryland lawmakers say can be readily converted by replacing the slide backplate with an illegal MCD, and it directs the Maryland Department of State Police to publish a list of prohibited models. These include the same handguns used by Maryland State Police and the Baltimore Police Department, although law enforcement is exempted from the proposed prohibition. The proposed ban would to take effect on Jan. 1, 2027.
NSSF warns gun owners to stay on the "Right Side of LegalTM" when making improvements or customizing firearms. The Firearm Industry Trade Association warns that modifying a firearm by adding an illegal device that overrides the original, intended function or design to render a semiautomatic firearm into an automatic firearm is a felony. That includes importing, possessing, making or selling an MCD. It's a violation of the National Firearms Act (NFA) and carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years and up to $250,000 in fines.