Governor Hogan aligned himself with the gun lobby and vetoed the legislation that would eliminate the Handgun Permit Review Board. As you know, Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence made eliminating the HPRB one of our priorities for 2018. With your help, we prevailed upon the legislature to pass this legislation by an overwhelming margin but our work is not over.

The HPRB has become a vehicle for circumventing Maryland’s strong firearms safety laws by ruling against the Maryland State Police’s permit decisions in 86-91% of cases in 2018. Hogan’s lack of support for the Maryland State Police’s diligent work on keeping guns out of the hands of those who shouldn’t have them is an inexcusable attack on our law enforcement, and shows his true motives of wanting to keep partisan politics in the process instead of putting the appeals in the hands of qualified, impartial law judges at the Office of Administrative Hearings.

When the new legislative session begins in January, we’ll be back in Annapolis to make sure that we get the votes to override this veto and we need your help.

How you can help:

– Donations. Please support this work in Annapolis with a contribution here.

-Attendance at meetings. The new HPRB will meet every Monday in Baltimore to address the backlog of appeals and we need volunteers to monitor the proceedings. Email liz@mdpgv.org for more information.

-Your voice! Stay tuned for opportunities to contact your legislators when they reconvene.

Thank you for everything you do!