2024 Republican Public Safety Agenda

The Maryland House and Senate Republican Caucuses have released their public safety agenda for the 2024 MGA Legislative Session:

• Violent Firearms Offenders Act of 2024 
• Increases penalties for violent offenders, closes the “drug dealer loophole,” and penalizes knowingly transferring a gun for a crime. This bill has passed in the Senate previously with bipartisan support. 
• Safe Communities Act of 2024
• Ensures violent offenders serve the duration of their sentence and keeps repeat offenders off the streets by denying them bail. 
• Gun Theft Felony Act of 2024
• Makes the theft of a firearm a felony, a critical tool in getting illegal guns off the streets.
• Drug-Free Roadways Act of 2024
• Reverses the ban on police searching vehicles based on the smell of cannabis, getting drug-impaired drivers off the road and restoring an important law-enforcement tool for confiscating illegal guns. 
• Juvenile Justice Restoration Act of 2024
• Corrects recent misguided laws that have made it effectively impossible to hold juvenile criminals accountable. Allows juveniles to be interviewed by police with parental consent, requires juveniles who commit a crime with a gun to be tried in the juvenile court system, and eliminates the "catch and release" approach to repeat juvenile criminals. 

This comprehensive package of bills will deter violent crime with increased penalties, keep repeat violent offenders in jail and out of our communities, get illegal firearms off the streets, get drug impaired drivers off the roads, give our law enforcement the tools they need to do their jobs, and ensure juvenile criminals face justice and accountability for their actions.  
 
Maryland’s crime crisis has to be addressed, and Republicans are bringing solutions to Annapolis. 

We need to do everything we can to support our Republican legislators in getting these bills passed.  The safety of our communities, and the lives of many Marylanders, will depend on it.