A Firearm Licensing Law Struck Down as Unconstitutional

A US Federal Court said it is unconstitutional to require tough restrictions to license a gun.

4th Circuit struck down Maryland’s unconstitutional handgun law. We have a God-given right to keep and bear arms, as guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment. This protects us from government. Whether tyranny. Or breakdown—and mob rule. Judges matter.

~ Mike Davis

Under a new legal test, a Maryland law requiring fingerprinting, training, and up to a 30-day wait for a handgun license violates the Second Amendment.

A federal appeals court overturned one of Maryland’s toughest gun-control laws Tuesday, saying the decade-old handgun licensing statute that required fingerprinting, firearms training, and a waiting period of up to a month violated the Second Amendment.

The Washington Post Reports

The ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is among the first to strike down handgun permit requirements under a legal test established by the Supreme Court in 2022 that requires judges to consider whether modern-day regulations mirror what was in place around the time of the country’s founding.

The panel voted 2-1 to block Maryland’s enforcement of a key part of a 2013 law that was passed by Democratic legislators after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. It required that handgun buyers, who already faced background checks and waiting periods for purchases, obtain an additional “handgun qualification license” from Maryland officials and wait up to 30 days to have it approved, reports The Washington Post.

The Post then discussed Sandy Hook as impetus for the restrictive law.

Gun rights advocates have argued in courts across the country that dozens of long-standing state and federal gun laws cannot survive the Supreme Court’s new historical test. And judges, at times reluctantly, have agreed in cases affecting age restrictions for handgun purchases, the kinds of “sensitive places” where guns can be legally banned, and the kinds of convictions for which states can ban people from possessing guns under New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, the landmark 2022 ruling that said gun restrictions were unconstitutional unless they were already in place around the time of the Second Amendment’s adoption or were closely analogous to Colonial-era restrictions.

In a follow-up case that experts say tests the reach of the high court’s Bruen decision, the justices are weighing whether domestic violence offenders can be legally disarmed.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Attorney General Anthony G. Brown, both Democrats, each said Tuesday that they are evaluating their appeal options. Maryland gun rights activists and the National Rifle Association celebrated the decision.

“This makes it very clear that the state can’t erect obstacles,” said Mark Pennak, president of Maryland Shall Issue and one of the plaintiffs who first challenged the gun licensing law in 2013. “The right to keep and bear arms necessitates the ability to acquire them. You cannot keep and bear that which you cannot acquire.”

The M Report

Those strict licensing laws haven’t stopped anything. It would be better if they followed the laws we have in place and improved the background check system.

We have revolving doors for serious gun and gang lawbreakers in New York, Chicago, and other communist states. We keep criminals on the streets, and we have open borders, letting new criminals in who can roam our streets.

I found this video at whatfinger.

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