Citizen’s Letter Deserves An Answer.

Dear House of Delegates Judiciary Committee:

After contacting my Maryland State Delegate, the Honorable David Rudolph, I understand that HB 470 “received an unfavorable report from the House Judiciary Committee”, and subsequently died of natural causes. Can someone please explain to me why?

I am an honest American citizen, Maryland resident, member of the U.S. Armed Forces, Christian, and gun owner. I often go to the local shooting range, where I have to carry weapons and ammunition in my vehicle. In the event someone tried to steal my weapons and/or the ammunition that I am forced to separate from one another, I could not defend myself, or keep these weapons from falling into the wrong hands, since I cannot carry a loaded weapon in the transportation of other weapons – a common security practice employed by any agency in the business thereof.

When my wife and I first moved to Perryville, in 2000, we hadn’t been renting the house long, that we now own, when we were met by the local “toughs”, a group of kids bent on terrorizing the neighborhood. Not knowing who they were, since we were new to the neighborhood, I politely asked that they quit cutting through our yard, as a means of a shortcut through the neighborhood. As a result of my legitimate request, a verbal altercation ensued, that resulted in one of the members threatening to; go home, get his gun, and come back and “kill me and my whole family”. Taking his threat seriously, I sat around all afternoon awaiting his return, after having first called the local police. Only a few weeks later, this same thug would lay in wait for another youth, at a local high school, and baseball bat the young man into a coma, for the crime of allegedly “dissing his boy”. The last I knew he was serving fifteen (15) years, in Jessup, as he was also found later with drugs and a loaded handgun in his possession, while awaiting trial for the baseball bat incident. He vowed to the local Chief of Police to return to Perryville for retribution. As I understand, this hood is due to get out of prison soon, if he hasn’t already. Who does he plan on seeking retribution from?

Two years ago, as a result of having to go to Baltimore to the Johns Hopkins facility, located near the 1100 block of Eager Street, I thought I would take the train, from Perryville, and enjoy the day. I had a beautiful train ride to the city, and marveled at the wonder and beauty it has to offer. After crossing over I-395, I quickly learned how ugly it can become, in just a few short blocks, as I first walked passed the prison and then the brand new “projects”. As I approached the clinic that I was sent to, by the U.S. Government, as a result of having to receive a periodic dental exam, for the U.S. Army Reserves, I was in fear for my life as I got closer to the clinic, for I was beginning to be stalked by the local crack heads. Quickening my pace, I finally arrived safely, but not for had it been me keeping astutely aware of my surroundings. As I sat in the dental chair on the 3rd floor, I could not help but notice the crack dealers behind the pool house of the new project’s swimming pool, dealing in an “open air” drug market. Upon leaving, I had a cabbie offer me a ride. When I told him I was taking the bus, he told me I could, “If I lived that long”! No sooner than the cabbie left, a crack head from behind the pool house, directly approached me. Mustering as much bravado as I could find, I challenged the thug as he approached me, keeping him off guard, as he was wanting to know whether or not I was “five-oh” (a cop). Point being, I would have felt much safer, knowing that I had my S&W .40 cal. close at hand, rather than being empty handed against a dozen, or so crack dealers, in a crack infested “project”, in the middle of “the hood”. Ironically, the crack heads obviously didn’t care whether or not they had, or even needed, a carry permit.

Only a few months ago, my wife and I went to Baltimore to pick up a generator I had purchased, on line. On the way home, as I entered in the fact that I did not want to take the interstate, into my navigational aid, and instead wanted to take U.S. Route 40, since the generator was hanging out the back of the trunk of my wife’s car. My navigational aid not knowing one neighborhood from another, and as such, lead me through the north east corner of the city, passing appropriately enough, the Baltimore Cemetery. As we proceeded through the city “with the highest murder rate in America”, I explained to my wife, as we put up the windows, and locked the doors, what the blue lights were on top of the lamp poles, located throughout the neighborhoods we were driving through. Several friends of mine, who live in the city, nervously laugh as they describe the lampposts as where you go, when you are in trouble, so “your family can come recover your body”. For as they were originally designed as a police emergency call station, they are allegedly constantly monitored by the drug lords, to look for “snitches” who use them to call the police. The locals also claim that even if you go to one in need, that by the time the Baltimore Police arrive, that is where they would find your dead body, as they are in neighborhoods the police are “slow to respond to”.

Not just picking on the City of Baltimore, it hasn’t been long ago that I left a second job I had been moonlighting at, at the Edgewood Home Depot. Not long after I started, I began noticing the dramatic drop in customers after sunset. One local resident told me, “Hey, this is Edgewood, you don’t get caught out after dark”. Apparently there has been a dramatic increase in crime in the Edgewood area, primarily from city drug gangs, such as the “Bloods” and “Crips” moving into the area. The move was partly due to some low rent housing that moved to that area, from the city, in lieu of the infusion of federal monies to fix up older neighborhoods, as well as, the allure of the drug dealers to move out of the city, into the more lucrative “burbs”. It even spawned local lawmakers to enact “anti-gang” crime bills, and was even reported on in today’s “Cecil Whig”, as these drug dealers having gone “mobile” and are subsequently moving in and through Cecil County, up and down the I-95 corridor.

With a bar across the street, and a convicted criminal, who is now serving time in a local jail, living next door, I cannot escape the lawlessness, that I thought I could seek refuge and solace in a seemingly sleepy little town, like Perryville. The local “toughs” will smile and tell you that when the Perryville Police Force is not “on duty”, for which we do not, in spite of some’s insistence, have complete 24/7 police coverage, that the State Police barracks are a full twelve (12) minutes away. Realizing there are other police force agencies closer, it still demonstrates the brazen attitude of the local youth. In fact, I’ll bet that I have called; local, county, and state police, on over twenty (20) separate occasions, over the last year alone, between the; bar fights in the parking lot, in my yard, and the bad drug deals that have gone on next door. I have been in no less than three (3) separate altercations that have come close to physical contact, with the local youths, one in defense of my daughter returning home from a date. These types of acts not only happen to me, by my other neighbors, as well, most recently culminating with one my neighbors having to physically defend himself from a direct attack from a drunken young sot who decided to expose his genitalia to the local kids playing nearby. The reckless abandonment that plagues my neighborhood has resulted in another neighbor recently moving, forfeiting their home to foreclosure, because quite honestly, “they had just had enough”. Now, all of the properties but one rental unit on that side of the street are currently up for sale. This does not mention other, more serious crimes, such as; the alleged shooting that took place in the apartment directly across the street, the drug overdose that resulted in death next door, or the two (2) seven (7) man State Police S.W.A.T. teams that, along with every local law enforcement agency, simultaneously raided both the house across the street, and the apartment next door, for drugs. It does not also speak of the recent armed robbery at the local shopping center, whereby the police would later search for the handgun that was apparently thrown in the bushes, nearby, by the alleged perpetrators, nor does it speak of the drive-by shooting in the upscale neighborhood, for which our grandchild’s daycare center is located down the street from. When the community has turned to our locally elected officials, they fold their arms, or wave their hands, and mumble quite a bit, yet nothing is ever done to improve the situation. They shrug it off as “just the way it is”, but in the eight (8) or so years we have lived here, Perryville has gone from “Mayberry” to aproaching “East L.A.”.

With the economy growing worse, statistics show that as the economy decreases, the crime rate increases. As a result, I can only look forward to a bad situation getting worse. With all of that said, why is it that I cannot, under the current laws and guidelines, receive a permit to carry a concealed deadly weapon to protect myself and my family? I currently possess a government issued security clearance, with an FBI background check. My fingerprints, and DNA are already on file, with; local, state, and federal agencies. My weapons were all properly; bought, paid for, and are legally registered. I am also: a certified Expert marksman, the highest grade the military awards, with an M-16 automatic assault rifle; a trained weapons instructor; and have and continue to run military firing ranges, as the Range Safety Officer, and Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge. Furthermore, I am trained to lead soldiers into combat in defense of these United States of America, having first sworn to “defend it against all enemies, both foreign and domestic, so help me God”, yet I cannot carry a loaded firearm for personal protection, and that of my own family? The irony is, is that the crack head can, in spite of your laws.

So again, I ask why is it that a person, such as myself, cannot legally carry a concealed weapon? I know some may say, “go ahead and apply, nothing is stopping you”, yet I disagree. Looking at the language of the current law, it is clear that unless I; carry lots of cash, am in a security or law enforcement position, either active or retired, the chances of receiving such are slim to none. HB 470 came close to changing all of that, yet even I believe there was still too much verbiage remaining for the justification of granting thereof, but one thing is for sure, it was a far sight better than the legislation we currently have, which places all of the advantage in the hands of the criminal, and not in the hands of the citizens for which each and every one of you were elected to represent.

Please advise,

Jerry R. Roope