[Archers] Crossbow Laws ...

[Deedee L Cole]

Siegfried,

   I have lived in AA County for over 12 years, and I had always been led
to believe
exactly what was sent to you. So..... I went to the AA County Municipal
Code web page
and did a search.  'Firearms' seem to be, as you said, rifles, handguns,
and shotguns.
'weapons' are defined as bows and arrows, bb guns, slingshots and the
like.

  The only restrictions seem to be related to actually discharging the
various items
(except for no sale/loan/etc... to minors), so it seems that if you don't
want to shoot
it, you should be okay.

  If I find any more, I will let everyone know.
 
  I am just as curious, since it is difficult to teach a marshals class
without a crossbow
to demonstrate inspection techniques :)

Dealla
On Mon, 03 Mar 2003 13:19:55 -0500 Siegfried Sebastian Faust
<eliwhite at adelphia.net> writes:
> Greetings fellow archers, I have a call for information/discussion 
> about 
> crossbow laws.
> 
> A while back I did a slow tedious crawl through all of Maryland 
> state law 
> about crossbows ... mostly due to my every now and then hearing it 
> said 
> that: "Crossbows are considered firearms and therefore are illegal 
> to have 
> on public property (such as at an event in a public park, or in a 
> school, etc.)
> 
> Besides being a crossbow fanatic in general, when I went to start 
> making 
> crossbows for sale, I got REALLY interested in this, as if this was 
> true, I 
> could be considered a firearms manufacturer/dealer ... which would 
> have 
> some pretty serious ramifications.
> 
> Anyway, after crawling through all state law, I found nothing about 
> 
> this.  There were some bans on crossbows being used to hunt 
> frogs/fish, and 
> so on.  But nothing about them being considered a firearm, and 
> nothing 
> about them being banned from public property then.
> 
> [Ok, that was the background, here is the deal]
> 
> Today I get copied a message from the University Chancellor that 
> says:
> 
> >Please inform the person who is organizing the Archery track that 
> no
> >crossbows are permitted on site. The county considers crossbows to 
> be a
> >firearm and therefore, no crossbows are permitted on any 
> county-owned
> >land or facilities.
> 
> Ok, now granted, I didn't check every single COUNTIES laws, because 
> I 
> didn't think that they would differ on such a major point from the 
> state.  But considering it a possibility, I just went to check into 
> it.  So 
> I looked through Anne Arundel counties laws/code (the county where 
> the next 
> university is being held ...)
> 
> And I find nothing.
> 
> In fact, I find 'better than nothing', in that I find a specific 
> statement 
> that refutes the claim:
> 
> >§ 4-101.  Possession or discharge of firearms.
> >b0f1591.jpg
> >
> >(a)     In this section, "firearm" includes a rifle, handgun, or 
> shotgun 
> >as those terms are defined in Article 27, § 36F of the State Code.
> 
> Having checked the state code, I know that crossbows are not 
> included in 
> the definition there, and therefore, crossbows are NOT considered 
> firearms 
> by Anne Arundel County ...
> 
> [On a side note, even if they were, the rest of the laws in that 
> section go 
> on to only say that the discharge of a firearm is illegal on county 
> 
> property, not possession.  Which makes much more sense anyway.]
> 
> So, I have questions for everyone out there ...
> 
> A) Do you have conflicting information to present to me in reference 
> to 
> Anne Arundel County?
> 
> B) Does anyone in Lochmere here know anything about this rule 
> (obviously 
> someone in Lochmere thinks that this rule exists, to pass it on to 
> the 
> Chancellor, and I would like to talk to that person.)
> 
> C) Does anyone think they know of any other county in Maryland that 
> has 
> this law?
> 
> Thanks,
> Siegfried
>