by Dave Workman
Senior Editor

Gun rights activists in Maryland, along with the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), expressed alarm over a published report that Montgomery County, MD, police, aided by federal agents, will use tens of thousands of unsubstantiated tips and rumors generated during the “Beltway sniper” investigation to search out possible state gun law violations.

The Washington Times revealed on Jan. 3 that the effort is planned to begin sometime this month.

The pro-gun Montgomery Citizens for a Safer Maryland (MCSM) uncannily predicted such a possibility in October, at the height of the “Beltway sniper” manhunt. MCSM had posted the prediction on its website, and with the recent disclosure by police, MCSM Co-chairman Roger Culver noted, “I just plain don’t like it,” in an interview with the newspaper.

He suggested that the new gun task force, which includes agents from the Secret Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), could “go overboard while investigating gunowners,” the newspaper reported.

The Times’ disclosure brought a quick response from CCRKBA, which likened the effort to a “police fishing expedition.”

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb said the effort, described by The Times story, “is not simply an assault on the Second Amendment, it’s also an affront to the Fourth Amendment.”

The task force will reportedly use some of over 100,000 tips called into the Sniper Task Force during the October investigation, but never followed up because they were not considered to have a direct bearing on that case. Now that accused snipers Robert Allan Muhammad and John Lee Malvo are behind bars, though, police authorities are now looking through those bits of information to investigate other possible gun crimes.

Ostensibly, authorities will only go after known felons with firearms, based on the tip information.

But CCRKBA Executive Director Joe Waldron believes this could open a Pandora’s box, leading to a community environment reminiscent of dictatorships where “neighbors turn in neighbors and relatives spy on one another, reporting them to the police for exercising a constitutionally-protected civil right.”

Observed Waldron: “What are Maryland gunowners to expect as a result of this, a midnight knock on the door from police, demanding to see their firearms and proof of legal ownership, based simply on some tip or rumor they got from a nervous neighbor or angry acquaintance?”

Reflecting on the extremist anti-gun politics of former Gov. Parris Glendening, Waldron noted, “This is the kind of gun control nonsense one would expect to have lingering from the Glendening regime. I only hope that Maryland’s new administration returns some common sense to the gun issue, hopefully nipping this sort of thing in the bud.”

Maryland voters elected Republican Robert Ehrlich, who said that he would review the state’s gun laws if elected.