OK I talked to a helpful guy at the MSP. The notary does not have to happen in MD.
Yes. they can be VERY helpful, and will lead you to believe that if you "follow the rules" you can get a permit.
Then then they will gladly take your $75 -- and you'll never hear from them again.
The MD PCH program is the governmental equivalent of a gypsy driveway paving business...
The catch-22 in MD is that there ARE NO RULES for the issuance of permits--the process is COMPLETELY discretionary. There is NO training requirement. There is NO statutory definition for a "good and substantial reason". There is NO provision for people who have previously held MD permits to be sure they can easily renew them (renewals are often denied for no reason). There is NO "RKBA Clause" in the MD State Constitution. There are, in fact NO statutory rules for the issuance of permits that we can put our fingers on.
It is essentially money down the drain. However, I would suggest that ANYONE with the extra money to throw away apply for a MD permit, so that we can inflate their "rejection" statistics. One of the difficulties with getting "Shall Issue" passed in MD is that people know its impossible to get a MD permit, so very few people apply. They actually have a VERY low rejection rate on applications--because the only people that apply are people who KNOW they will get one because they are well-connected.
If a bunch of people--law abiding citizens who have permits in other states--start applying and getting rejected wholesale--that can work in the favor of the current lawsuit that Alan Gura and SAF have against MD (Wollard).
MD's argument is that there is no "injury" to the general public from their current issuance policies, because their statistics show that almost every application they take in gets approved. What they won't tell the court is the reason why that is, is because everyone knows that the only people who apply in MD are people who's connections guarantee they will get a permit, because all the law-abiding people know the MSP only issues permits to people who are rich, famous, or make the correct types of political contributions...
I'd like to see a day int he near future where MD has a 95% rejection rate on their permit apps. And that could happen VERY easily. If just 20% of the "regular citizens" in contiguous states to MD who have permits in their home state applied, (and most likely they would ALL be rejected), this would skew their issuance stats so much that it would be nearly impossible for them to argue "no injury" in the Wollard case...
Is "Shall Issue" in MD worth $75 to every person who lawfully carries in the Mid Atlantic region?
Well, most of us are so fed up with the corruption, graft, favoritism nepotism, and blatant unconstitutionality of Annapolis and Pikesville that we don't think MD is worth even a single penny of our money. And since the majority of the citizens in the "4 Urban Counties) seem to actually ENJOY their tailspin into serfdom, it can be awfully difficult for the rest of us to muster an iota of "give a damn" for gun rights in the PRM.
But perhaps, a little creative civil disobedience in the form of a Permit Application Avalanche would help in the Wollard case. Imagine if Alan Gura could subpoena a few THOUSAND law-abiding permit holders from other states to testify on Wollards behalf against the MSP for their spurious and arbitrary issuance policies.
In THAT light, throwing $75 down the "MD Permit App Toilet" seems like a MUCH more effective investment of our money that "donating" to some local "gun rights organization"...
We've got to start thinking SERIOUSLY outside the box with MD folks. They don't play by the rules there--in fact,
there ARE no rules, and they get to make it up as they go with regards to issuance of permits in MD.
Its time to stop plaing by the ever-changing guidelines that Pikesville pulls out of thin air, and do something REALLY creative. If they want to play a game of Administrative Wack-a-Mole, then we just need to put down our single hammer of Justice and Procedure, and bring in a few metaphorical B-17s full of mallets and open the bomb bay doors all at once...
If we want to get this ship out of an ice jam, we gotta ROCK THE BOAT...