Gun Rally Feb 6 Annapolis!

[WESTMD]

We went to Annapolis yesterday! What a day! Here is the report. Myself and one of my coworkers and 3 of his friends rode the bus from Allegheny County. We left at 7:00 AM from LaVale. I think we arrived between 9:30 and 10:00 (I was too excited to look at the time) and they left us off in front of the State House and Lawyers Square. There was probably about 800-1000 people already there. We went to the Senate building to get in line to testify against the O'Malley Gun Ban Bill and we got separated from my coworker and his friends but I did find Chuck (one of my coworkers friends) and we got in line to sign up to testify. After an hour in line we had only made it to the first landing of the Miller Senate building stairs when I think a fellow from MSI told us we could do more good by going to the Senate Judicial Committee members offices and registering our opposition to the bill. So we got a list from him of the committee members and their office numbers and we took off to voice our opposition. We almost went to every committee member in the Jame Senate office building but we got side tracked by our own Senator George Edwards. We stopped by his office and his secretary told us he was not there but he would be back soon so we stayed to talk to him. After meeting with George we saw the rally outside was in full swing so we took off to join the people outside. We went up the stairs to the State House so we could see and hear what was going on. WOW that is when I realized there must of been at least 2-3 thousand people there! All in all a great but long day. We could not get back in to the Senate building because it was shut down because of the Fire Marshall (or maybe O'Malley) but we stayed until 5:00 PM and held up my "DO NOT TREAD ON ME" banner in Lawyers Square. Then at 5:00 PM the bus pulled out to head home. This is just a condensed version of all the things that happened yesterday. I almost left out that we were interviewed by a radio station and asked why we were opposed to the bill and "What would you do to control gun violence in MD", and I am not so sure we actually made it on air. I am so happy that I at least did what I could to help out our cause! Would be interesting to know how many other people made the trip from GC?

 

[Josey Wales]

Thank you for posting this !

Actually,

"The Maryland Minute Men" were passing out papers with the names and office numbers of all involved. (Please don't ask how or where we made those copies ) This way you could go to each office and put your name on those lists to oppose SB281 or other bills and show how many different people could just walk in and say "Hi, I vote and I oppose SB281" or something else nice to the employees in those offices.

At one point a lady in one office had commented that there were many good looking well - dressed men coming in and how polite we were.

Its great to hear about your trip to this and if there is anything that can be done to help like pointing you in the right direction to be more effective. We noticed many people that were wondering around. Those were more of the ones we approached with the papers and pointed them to the other side of the building and into the offices. Please, when you finish with that paper pass it on to someone else.

-JW.

 

[ColonelHurtz]

I want to thank all of you guys who came down for the rally.
It was much more of a burden for you to make that trip then for many of us to
just shoot down to Annapolis.

 

[WESTMD]

Thanks! I think we had either 56 or 57 on the bus from Allegany Co and 5 of those were from Washington Co. I had decided to go on my own until my coworker told me about the bus trip. It was a great trip, and I met a lot of interesting people all with the same concern that I have about the state of the MD government. Even though I am a voter and always vote, I learned a lot about our MD government in general and how it operates. Also thanks for correcting me about the person and people who were helping us to find our way to the Senate offices. I think I may not of had the chance to speak before the committee but I did make my voice heard in the Senate offices.