Maryland’s Scary Black Gun Law: Back to the Drawing Board

scary black gunsRemember when former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, who during a Democratic debate (his pathetic campaign has thankfully and quietly faded into the annals of historical obscurity) got into a screeching argument with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton about who among them is the biggest enemy of American gun owners?

Remember how O’Malley and his gun-grabbing monkeys in the Maryland legislature rammed though the “Firearms Safety Act” assault weapons ban, which had nothing to do with actual safety?

That’s the one upheld by an activist judge last year, because she soiled her frilly, pink panties at the thought of scary, black guns being legal in the state, even though they were almost never used to commit crimes.

That judge has been issued a slap on the judicial nuggets by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Maryland’s assault weapons ban implicates its citizens’ core Second Amendment rights and must be reviewed under a more rigorous judicial standard than the one used by a judge who upheld the law’s constitutionality, a divided federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

[…]

The appeals court said Maryland’s law affects the constitutional right to possess firearms for self-defense and home protection by banning virtually an entire class of weapons commonly owned by law-abiding citizens. In 2012, the number of semi-automatic rifles manufactured and imported into the United States – and banned by the Maryland law – was more than double the number of Ford F-150 trucks sold, the appeals court said.

I want to stress that the court didn’t rule on the constitutionality of said law, but did say that the judge who issued the ruling on the Scary Black Guns ban issued a ruling that “conflicts sharply with rulings of other federal appellate courts.”

What? You mean to tell me that standards pulled randomly out of a petty statist Clinton appointee judge’s fourth point of contact, influenced by her own  prejudices without any knowledge about these guns, and armed with nothing but an uninformed opinion, don’t represent sufficient reason to deprive Americans of their rights?

You mean “Well, I think these guns are scary, so I’m upholding their ban” is not sufficient legal standing to shred the Constitution?

Look at my shocked face!

Of course the gun-grabbing authoritarians in Maryland aren’t done yet. There’s a chance they will appeal this case to the Supreme Court. There’s no length to which they will not go to infringe on the People’s right to keep and bear arms!

But for now, at the very least, we have a ruling that recognizes that bigotry and ignorance are not standards by which the constitutionality of a law should be judged.

The entire decision is here (h/t This Ain’t Hell) if you want to read it.

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6 thoughts on “Maryland’s Scary Black Gun Law: Back to the Drawing Board”

  1. I’ve said elsewhere (because I read it elsewhere), that the U.S. Court of Appeals tends to avoid ruling on the merits of the cases they hear. It’s very rare that that level will overturn a finding or strike down a law. Rather, they tend to look for procedural errors and, if any are found, remand the cases back to the lower courts with instructions.

    Thus, the decision to remand it back to the lower court with instructions doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.

    What does surprise me, however, is the decision that the lower court’s use of “intermediate scrutiny” to rule on a law that directly implicates the Second Amendment is, in itself, a procedural error. That is a big deal, especially from a non-gun-friendly circuit like the 4th.

    (Another thing folks are overlooking is that the 2-1 split means one judge on the panel is still willing to openly defy SCOTUS precedent in Heller and McDonald, and uphold patently unconstitutional gun bans because of his/her personal feelings.

    Tar. Feathers. Apply liberally.)

  2. its the same type of judge that stares into the 14th amendment for long enough 100 years after its ratified and finds abortion there

  3. …….We know full well that should strict scrutiny be applied to the Second Amendment, the vast majority of gun laws currently on the books would inescapably be found to be unconstitutional infringements of the Second Amendment, and discarded.

    In short, the application of strict scrutiny to the Second Amendment, just as it is applied to the other rights enumerated in the Constitution, would be a complete game changer on gun rights on a national scale.

    Today, the United States Court of Appeals for 4th Circuit did exactly that, applying strict scrutiny to Maryland’s “Firearms Safety Act,” in a two-to-one decision that could change the face of gun laws for Maryland (arguably one of the most anti-gun states in the nation), and perhaps portend similar relief for the beleaguered residents of New York, New Jersey, California, and the few other remaining anti-gun states……

    http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/02/big-2a-win-4th-circuit-applies-strict-scrutiny-to-maryland-gun-control-law/

    1. You really should buy me a drink first, at the very least.

      Such witty repartee and devastating logic. You’ve demonstrated a truly remarkable grasp of the constitutional, legal, and moral issues of firearms ownership. Now run back to your village; they miss their idiot.

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