Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Gun laws draw Ensign deeper into D.C. politics

WASHINGTON -- Republican Sen. John Ensign may not exactly be the mayor of D.C., but his efforts to change in the city’s gun laws has prompted a dispute with neighboring Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley that could draw the Nevada senator deeper into local politics.

The Washington Post is reporting today that Maryland says the state is ill-equipped to handle the potential onslaught of gun buyers Ensign’s recent legislation would unleash on his state.

Ensign engineered Senate passage an amendment that would essentially overturn the District’s gun control regulations as too strict. District officials are not pleased at what they see as meddling in their local affairs. One of the Ensign provisions would allow residents of the District to buy handguns in neighboring Maryland and Virginia.

Maryland worries this could create a potential shopping spree that would cost the state millions to regulate. Maryland would be required to do background checks on all the new purchasers.

The Post explains the District has only one licensed firearms dealer. Prospective buyers may turn to neighboring Maryland or Virginia to shop. (Distances are short here -- driving over state lines is not much different that driving from Summerlin to Henderson.)

The director of O'Malley's Office of Crime Control and Prevention explained all this in a recent letter to lawmakers on the Hill.

“This is not a game," the director, Kristen Mahoney, said in an interview with the Post. "This has nothing to do with the politics of the matter. Operationally, this is impossible. And that's what legislators have to realize."

Ensign spokesman Tory Mazzola told the Post “no one in his office had seen Mahoney's letter. ‘If she'd like to talk through these issues,’ Mazzola said, ‘we'd be happy to talk about them.’"

Virginia officials have not expressed such concerns, the Post reported.

The Post notes that the provision for the District would exempt local residents from federal law, saying no other state allows residents to cross state lines to buy handguns.

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