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Friday, January 4, 2013

Registered firearms in Howard County

   I heard a report on the number of registered firearms and assault weapons in Maryland a couple of weeks ago.  Maryland has one of the most tightly regulated laws for gun registration.  The report gave the numbers for Maryland and I was curious how this translated to Howard County.  I contacted Captain Jack McCauley    at the Maryland State Police who had compiled the Statewide numbers.
  • There are currently 790,000 regulated firearms registered in Maryland. 
  • 46,719 are Assault Weapons. 
  • Howard County residents have registered 7,738 firearms in the last five years.
      He didn't have the breakdown on the number of assault weapons in Howard County.  We may not have the same percentage as the entire state of Maryland but using the same ratio as the Statewide ratio there would be approximately 455 assault weapons in HoCo.  

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I live in Columbia - - - I possess a dozen regulated firearms to include an "assault weapon." I would venture that the number is much higher...than what you suspect. When I moved to MD - Howard Co - Maryland didnt have mandatory handgun registration and still does not (unless you are buying one). If you move in to MD - You can voluntarily register it, but why would you want to? Some of mine are registered - some arent. Just saying - - - - b

HoCo Connect said...

Just curious--why do you have an assault weapon?

Anonymous said...

Greetings Just curious - - I have an "assault weapon" because someone, somewhere labeled it as an assault weapon...

I'm an honorably discharged U.S.Army veteran to include the 1st Gulf War and have served 27 years as a federal criminal investigator in the US DOJ and US DHS...

I enjoy shooting as a hobby - in general - and have obviously been shooting "professionally" for about 30 years. I arrested hundreds of violent,repeat felons ~ mostly in the DC Metropolitan area...and a handful in Columbia ~ during my LE career - many armed at the time of arrest. But, I never had to fear an armed, law abiding citizen.

I have firearms because I can - because I am trained - and because the police aren't really obligated to protect individual citizens. If they were - there wouldn't be so many murders, sexual assaults, robberies, burglaries, etc.

As an aside, I would wager that there were thousands of people in the Boston area that wished they had some kind of firearm when the most recent terrorist(s) were on the run and they were in lock down - sitting in their houses with Louisville Sluggers or golf clubs ? A bat or a club isnt much in the way of self defense when you are car jacked or someone kicks your door in - - - Best regards - Be safe! -b