Court Opinion

ID: 9756982
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 22:12:30.271777+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:30.579639
License: Public Domain

Lowe, /.,

dissenting:

In 1928 Mr. Justice Charles Evans Hughes pointed out that judges are constantly sustaining the validity of legislation which as legislators they would probably *660condemn. That is within the judicial aegis and our proper function. We exceed that function when we extend the scope of legislatively proscribed activities to include that which the legislature “might” have meant to proscribe, but did not clearly so indicate.
Most laws, by their nature, curtail activities that, but for the law, would be accepted and continued as a matter of right. It is my view that, when our lawmakers restrict these rights in an effort to accommodate the needs of contemporary society, the restriction should be limited to that which is clearly stated without additional limitations being placed upon the activities of our citizens by our judicial interpretation of what we believe the lawmakers might have intended to include. This should be so without regard to our opinion of the activities restricted.
I raised no dissent in Todd v. State, 28 Md. App. 127, but my silence was maintained with some trepidation when I considered how far the language of that opinion might carry us. The journey is already upon us. There, as pointed out by the majority here, we found it to be the legislative intent in enacting Sections 36A through 36F of Article 27,
“ ... to include any hand weapon simulating the appearance of a pistol or revolver that is capable of discharging a missile by any method of propulsion.” (Emphasis added).
I can at least question the correctness of our decision in Todd', I do dissent from our decision here.
Whatever our own view of the propriety of outlawing tear gas guns may be, it can play no part in our interpretation of the intent of the Legislature in enacting its handgun proscription. “We must not be guilty of taking the law into our own hands, and converting it from what it really is to what we think it ought to be.” Rex v. Ramsey, 1 C & E 126, 136.
In interpreting the statute in Todd, we sought the intent of the Maryland Legislature by referring to the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, 1st Department, the *661Municipal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. In extending our interpretation of the Maryland Legislature’s intent to include tear gas as a projectile, we now have rung in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged.
If tear gas consists of projectiles as declared by the majority, so even more does the wadding of a blank cartridge starter pistol since the black powder residue will penetrate the skin when fired in close proximity thereto. Reasoning from the sublime to the ridiculous, we couple Todd’s interpretation of “any method of propulsion” to the majority’s view of a projectile and conclude that a water pistol falls more readily within the judicial definition of a handgun than does a tear gas gun. While the majority assumed the projectile must be capable of inflicting injury, we find no such requirement in the statute.
Both in Todd and here, the majority relied upon the “Declaration of policy” prefacing the statute in question. That declaration said in effect that the “substantial increase in the number of persons killed or injured” is traceable to the carrying of handguns on the streets and public ways by persons inclined to use them in criminal activity. The restriction placed upon “wearing, carrying and transporting handguns” was intended to reverse that trend. Nowhere do I find indicia of legislative intent therein indicating that the General Assembly meant to include in that restriction air guns or tear gas pistols.
It seems to me that the facts of both Todd and the instant case are indicative that the legislation is effective, if only to a limited degree. When criminals resort to air pistols (Todd, supra) and tear gas guns, the danger of death and serious injury in the perpetration of crime is greatly lessened. The declaration of policy indicates (to me) that since we cannot find the means to stop crime absolutely, the danger of death or injury from the commission thereof with a handgun will be made more difficult and especially onerous, toward the *662end that life and limb may be preserved while we continue to seek the solution to the preservation of property as well.
In addition to the declaration of policy, the majority finds sustenance in the Legislature’s choice of the term “ ‘handgun’ rather than the more restrictive word ‘firearm’. ...” I agree that this wording was a “matter of deliberate choice; ” however, I cannot agree that “firearm” is more restrictive than “handgun.” By the majority’s own definition, taken from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1973), a “firearm” is “[a]ny weapon capable of firing a missile.” (Emphasis added). That term includes long arms as well as handguns and long arm inclusion in the handgun law was clearly not the legislative intent. “Firearms” may be more restrictive as to the means of propulsion; however, it does not restrict the type of projectile.
Common sense (for which I cannot cite judicial authority) leads me to conclude that if the Legislature intended to proscribe the “carrying, wearing or transporting” of tear gas, it would have done so, not only when carried in the shape or form of a “handgun” but in whatever other form it may take, such as a fountain pen, cosmetic compact, cane or other such container purchasable as a weapon of self defense. It is inconceivable that the Legislature would subject a person to imprisonment merely because of the shape of the tear gas container he carried and not do so to another carrying an equally dangerous but differently shaped container. I have taken the liberty of assuming that the majority would be willing to accept a restriction on their definition requiring that the shape of a handgun should at least resemble a “pistol, [or] revolver,” if not under the maxim “noscitur a sociis,” since those descriptive terms are used in the definition in § 36F, then by their express reference thereto in the “narrow holding.” See p. 10 of majority opinion. Without that shape restriction, a permit would be required to transport aerosal bombs and shaving cream dispensers.
Even more does my unauthoritative common sense lead *663me to the conclusion that the term “projectile” upon which the majority opinion turns (spoken of in one of the dictionary definitions), should be viewed in the context of its use, ie., that which is fired from a handgun. We are hard pressed to reach a result when we must consider sub-atomic gaseous-like particles as projectiles in the same category as the bullet in a cartridge or the shot in a shell. The majority’s opinion of the Legislature’s intent to include tear gas guns is supported entirely by a semantic foundation of lexical morphemes.
It is my opinion that if the General Assembly wishes to create the crime of transporting tear gas weapons or add a mandatory penalty for using them to perpetrate a crime, it should say so in a clear enough manner that we need not seek its intent in New York, Oklahoma, the District of Columbia or scattered among proliferate terms in various dictionaries.
I respectfully dissent.