(Washington Post) – For a day, Annapolis is about to serve as the epicenter in the national debate over gun control.
As many as 3,000 gun-rights advocates have begun amassing outside the Maryland State House to protest Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proposed gun-control legislation, as well as that being pushed by President Obama in the wake of the school shooting massacre in Newtown, Conn.
By coincidence, Obama is also in town to talk gun control. He’s huddled in a private meeting with Senate Democrats, who are on a retreat about a mile away at an Annapolis hotel.
The day’s main event will be the first public hearing of O’Malley’s proposed gun bill. The governor is seeking to institute some of the nation’s strictest gun-licensing requirements, ban assault weapons, and expand the number of people who can be disallowed from owning a firearm because of mental health problems.
Over 200 people have signed up to testify for and against the measure. O’Malley is expected to open the hearing with a plea for lawmakers to come together on gun control.
His proposal, however, is already caught in a tug of war between members of his own party.
Liberal Democrats, intent on capitalizing on public support for gun safety after the massacre, have introduced more than dozen pieces of legislation that add several additional gun-control measures.
Some more conservative — and powerful — Democrats, meanwhile, say O’Malley’s plan goes too far, and they are working to carve it up into pieces that might make the licensing portion more difficult to pass.
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