In common law, assault is the act of creating apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact with a person. As an inanimate object, a rifle is incapable of assaulting anything. The PERSON yielding the rifle may be assaulting something/someone, but the rifle is simply the tool the PERSON is using. Rifles can't assault anything!
Absolutely, and well said! Many people have been brainwashed to think that a military looking rifle is automatically an 'assault rifle'; it's now even in the new Maryland law, making it so. Ridiculous.
It's true.
I'm an evidence guy. I don't believe in setting arbitrary limits on things. There should be no quotas in law enforcement. If numbers go down, that should be a good thing. Laws should be passed based on facts. More importantly, they should be Constitutional.
Agreed! The article is sensationalized for the readership. Every sentence crafted to make the driver Mr. Smartt (yep, that's funny right there), look like an idiot. I agree it's not a good idea to go driving around without a seatbelt, or visit Maryland without understanding at least in general Maryland laws, as it appears Mr. Smartt was clueless.
But.... What did he really do? Not trying to defend him, but provide a different perspective; these 'one thing COULD lead to another' laws are a slippery slope. Was he swerving? Did he get in an accident because he was distracted? When the no talking on the phone law first went into effect it was a secondary crime, now a person can be pulled over for it. It burns me up too when people are driving like idiots and I can see they are on the phone; but the jury is still out as to the effectiveness of this preemptive law. Did he get hurt or die because he wasn't wearing his seatbelt? Was he shooting or intimidating anyone with his brass knuckles? What was he actually doing wrong? Everything the article suggested had the potential to be a negative, but all those things - the phone, the pepper spray, the pistol(s), rifle; none of them actually do anything. And Mr. Smartt wasn't harming anyone driving down the road.
This will be a very interesting case for the reasons already being discussed, interstate transport, SB281, carry of a rifle in a vehicle. What we have here my friends is our first test case. Remember how many times we all say we don't want to be the test case, well now we have a volunteer. If he's not a real bad-guy, which he might actually be (brass knuckles - really?); he would be lucky if it ends like the last two similar cases.