I am writing to correct the record, my record, on gun rights. At a gun association rally recently at the LaVale firehouse, my 25-year record in Annapolis on gun safety legislation was misconstrued and attacked. Let's set the record straight.
 
 First, I have always supported the constitutional right of my constituents and all law-abiding citizens to bear arms. Second, I have also always supported gun safety, which I believe is in line with the majority of my constituents, both those who own guns and those who don't.
 
 In my 25 years in the legislature representing this region where I grew up and lived all my life, I have always supported my constituents' constitutional right to bear arms and have voted against efforts to eliminate that right.
 
 I did vote for the assault weapons ban years ago, which was a bill that was strongly supported by law enforcement officers and which I still believe was a vote that was consistent with the beliefs of the overwhelming majority of my constituents, including hunters and gun owners. I have consistently opposed other restrictions on gun ownership by law-abiding adults.
 
 I have consistently voted for gun safety and supported firearms training programs. I have supported those programs in the past and I intend to champion them in the future. This coming session, I intend to introduce legislation to make firearms safety training programs more available to help eliminate the accidental shootings that tear our families apart.
 
 Hopefully these education programs can also help alleviate some of the misconceptions that many people have about guns. I believe the NRA is supportive of the types of programs I am talking about.
 
 But the NRA, which many of my constituents contribute to, has recently begun a letter-writing campaign attacking me about the "trigger lock bill" passed in the last session of the Maryland General Assembly.
 
 This past session, I voted for a bill that provides for the distribution of trigger locks with new guns sold in the state of Maryland. In fact, Texas Gov. George Bush, who is strongly supported by the NRA in his presidential race, and Vice President Al Gore both agree on at least one issue - they both support gun trigger locks because it increases safety.
 
 In the second presidential debate, Gov. Bush said, "In Texas, I tried to do something innovatively, which is, that there is a lot of talk about trigger locks in the future. I support that." Those are not my words as Casper Taylor, delegate from Western Maryland, those are the words of Republican Presidential candidate George Bush who I believe is right on this issue.
 
 I think trigger locks on handguns are a safety issue that will keep kids from accidentally killing themselves and their friends. I don't think that is "anti-gun" any more than I think George Bush is "anti-gun." It is simply an issue of safety.
 
 The NRA strongly opposed Gov. Parris Glendening's original gun proposal. So did I. In fact, a group of my constituents who are hunters and gun owners came to see me early last session and I pledged to them that I would not support the governor's "smart gun" proposal, which required a finger print-controlled gun lock mechanism. That proposal relied on technology that has not yet been invented. If that bill had passed as the governor proposed it, it would have been in reality a gun prohibition. I told my constituents I opposed that and I do.
 
 The governor's "smart gun" proposal was changed to take out the governor's so-called "smart technology" requirement. The bill that I voted for does not prohibit guns. The bill that passed requires new guns to have safety trigger locks.
 
 The bill also included a "tough on crime" provision that was modeled on the very successful Richmond program called "Project Exile," a program the NRA strongly supports. The Project Exile program imposes severe mandatory sentences, five years and more, for the commission of a crime while in possession of a gun. That is a law that sticks the penalty to the criminals, not one that tries to solve a criminal problem by restricting the activities of law abiding gun owners.
 
 Those are the provisions I voted for. Not the Governor's "smart gun" proposal. For someone to say that "I lied to my constituents," or that I voted against their right to own guns is just not true.
 
 Did the governor claim victory for "his" gun bill? Yes, he did. But the bill that passed did not include the smart gun technology provisions that he was seeking. What passed, and what I voted for, was a gun safety bill, not a gun prohibition bill or a "smart gun" bill. The provisions I pledged to oppose, which would have made it nearly impossible to buy or own guns in Maryland, were removed from the bill. I will continue to oppose those kinds of restrictions.
 
 At the rally last week in LaVale, the national NRA lobbyist said the NRA wants to "work with me." I have shared their goal in the past of protecting the constitutional right to bear arms and I intend to continue to work to protect the Second Amendment.
 
 I will also continue to support gun safety and I hope they will work with me on that. I was encouraged by Gov. George Bush's support of my position on trigger locks last week. I hope the NRA representatives will reach the same conclusion and continue to work with me to promote responsible, safe, gun ownership while ensuring that our laws preserve the constitutional rights of our citizens.
 

In a reader commentary published in the Cumberland Times-News October
 29, Speaker of the House Casper R. Taylor gives George W. Bush a big thumbs up on his record on gun legislation and, so it appears, on his run for president.
 
 Mr. Taylor can’t say enough about George W. While it’s obvious in this
 commentary that Mr. Taylor is desperately trying to make amends with the NRA (they were a little peeved at his support of trigger lock legislation passed by the General Assembly last spring), it’s astonishing that the Democratic Speaker of the House would pen such a commentary just 10 days shy of what could prove to be the closest race for the White House in years.
 
 What was he thinking? That he’ll do anything to stay in power, even
 abandon his party?
 
 In his writings October 29, Mr. Taylor makes reference to the fact that both presidential candidates support trigger locks, and he names the two candidates. That’s the first and last reference to Democratic candidate Al Gore in this lengthy tome.
 
 Mr. Taylor goes on to quote George W. on the topic of trigger locks, as opposed to Al Gore, and draws parallels between the views of the National Rifle Association, George W. Bush and Casper R. Taylor. Mr. Taylor is obviously kissing up to the lobbying giant, but couldn’t he have done that without kissing up to George W. Bush as well?
 
 He could easily have discussed the NRA without mentioning Mr. Bush, but he chose not to. Instead, he throws George W.’s name in there at every opportunity. He makes reference to George W. Bush five times in his commentary. He mentions that other guy - Al Gore - once.
 
 His sycophantic take on George Bush is pretty amazing throughout, but
 nothing compares to the last paragraph.
 
 In closing, Mr. Taylor writes: “I was encouraged by Gov. George Bush’s
 support of my position on trigger locks last week.” Really. Why isn’t Mr. Taylor grateful that Al Gore supports his stance on trigger locks?
 
 We’d like to know which of George W.’s stands on guns Mr. Taylor is
 going to be supporting next - carrying a concealed weapon?
 
 Mr. Taylor’s writings raise serious doubts about his role as leader of
 the Democratic party in the Maryland House. Why is he going on and on about George Bush this close to election day?
 
 The Democrats in Annapolis might want to think long and hard about whose side their Speaker is on.
 
 

October 17, 2000
 
  Jane Doe is the pseudonym for an Internet user who posted messages critical of Mr. Hritz and the company he serves as a general counsel, AK Steel of Middletown, Ohio.
 
  Like many publicly traded companies, AK Steel, which makes products for cars, appliances and other uses, is the subject of a message board on Yahoo. And as with many online forums, the discussion there tends toward the bareknuckled. In one message, Jane Doe wrote that Mr. Hritz "will litigate the time of day."
 
  In fact, Mr. Hritz has gone to court over that comment and others, claiming that the Doe postings are "threatening, libelous and disparaging." But even before actually filing a lawsuit, Mr. Hritz has asked Ohio's state courts to unmask Jane Doe's identity. Civil
 liberties groups are banding together to try to keep the identity a secret.
 
  From the content of the messages, it is evident that Jane Doe works for AK Steel. And Jane Doe's lawyers contend that Mr. Hritz's actual intention is to find and punish an errant employee.
 
  Lawsuits to pierce the veil of anonymity online are increasingly common in the Internet age. But two advocacy groups involved in workplace and online issues, Public Citizen and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argue that the AK Steel request goes too far, giving companies the power to silence corporate critics whether or not a case will ever be filed.
 
  Some corporations and their advocates counter that the Internet allows unfair "online assault" that can damage reputations. Bruce D. Fischman, a Miami lawyer, suggested in a recent presentation that maligned companies "contact counsel familiar with Internet
 defamation and securities issues to advise you on all legal remedies that may be available to unmask the anonymous poster, and pursue a suit for injunctive relief and damages."
 
  Mr. Fischman gave a presentation at Harvard Law School yesterday titled, "John and Jane Doe: Freedom Fighters or Verbal Terrorists?"
 
  The Supreme Court has declared that the First Amendment protects the right to speak anonymously as part of the guarantee of free speech; the authors of the Federalist Papers, after all, wrote as Publius, not Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. In
 court filings fighting the request to unmask Jane Doe, the civil liberties groups argue that at the very moment the power of the Internet is helping to create the biggest marketplace of ideas the world has ever seen, powerful companies will be able to squelch online speech by using the courts as a "private detective service" to unmask critics.
 
  "It's a David and Goliath story," said Lauren Gelman, director of public policy for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online civil liberties organization based in California. Ms. Gelman warned of a chilling effect on online speech: If the average Internet user "gets a subpoena like this in the mail, he's not going to go to the big law firm around the corner and say `defend me,' " she said. "He's going to stop talking. And if he stops talking, they've won."
 
 
  Paul Allen Levy, a lawyer for Public Citizen, concurred. "It's hard to believe that this is a case about defamation," he said. "I think this is a case about intimidation."
 
  Through his lawyer, David C. Horn, Mr. Hritz declined to comment on the matter.
 
  Courts have not yet laid out clear rules governing anonymity online, said Robert Corn-Revere, a Washington lawyer who is representing Jane Doe in the Virginia courts. "There's no real body
 of law out there on this," Mr. Corn-Revere said.
 
  On Friday, in a similar "John Doe" case that produced a lawsuit, a Florida appeals court let stand a lower-court ruling that required Yahoo and America Online to divulge the identity of people who posted messages critical of Eric Hvide, the former chief executive of Hvide Marine Inc. Mr. Hvide claimed in court that the comments had caused him to lose his job.
 
  "We're still exploring what the possible options are," said Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, a professor at the University of Florida who represented three of the defendants on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union. "Once the names are uncovered," she said, the right to speak anonymously is "irrevocably lost."
 
  In another recent case, the Thomas & Betts Corporation of Tennessee tried to uncover the name of an employee who had posted anonymous messages on a Yahoo message board, but dropped the suit after Public Citizen intervened.
 
  In Mr. Hritz's case, lawyers tried to learn Jane Doe's identity by using an Ohio law that allows people contemplating a lawsuit to begin the process of discovery, or legal investigation, before the suit is filed. The Ohio court issued a subpoena, which the attorneys sent to Yahoo. The online service said it did not know the identity of the commentator, but was able to show that the postings were made from an AOL account.
 
  When the subpoena was then sent to America Online, the company followed its own procedures for such cases, sending a letter to the potential defendant by overnight mail that explained that the name would be disclosed in 14 days if he or she did not raise a legal
 objection.
 
  The number of requests for the identities of John and Jane Does is growing, said Rich D'Amato, a spokesman for America Online. "We do receive hundreds of these subpoenas in a given year," Mr. D'Amato said, adding that the rise is "commensurate with the spread of the
 Internet in general as a business tool and as a communications tool."
 
  The potential defendant who asked that Jane Doe's actual name and sex be withheld as a condition for being interviewed said that upon receiving the America Online letter, "I was scared to death." After finding Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford law professor, on the Internet, Jane Doe sent the information to him. Mr. Lessig in turn passed the case along to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, on whose board he serves.
 
  In an e-mail interview, Mr. Lessig wrote: "If someone charges libel, then the anonymity of a poster should be preserved until the libel is proved. Otherwise, the subpoena power can be used to silence anonymous, critical speech."
 
  Jane Doe, who has been studying First Amendment law recently, said: "I don't want to be a martyr. But this is an issue that's bigger than me. It's about how they're going to shape law with the Internet. That's what the Internet is all about: the free flow of information. That's what I thought, anyway. I'm finding out a little different, right now."

Anyone sick of this amphitheatre, please raise your hand.

Uh huh. That's what we thought.

That amphitheatre will be useful for only about five months every year. Plus, we don't have the demographics here to support such a venture. And people from Baltimore/Washington are not going to run up here to see acts they can see at outdoor arenas right in their own backyard. So get over it already - it's a waste of money.

But back to the point. We like the idea of increased spending in education and transportation, but why not use the massive surplus we have on hand? Could this surplus mean we're paying more than enough taxes as it is? Wow! What a concept!