Judge: MD gun law unconstitutional
I’ve been hearing rumors that this was going to happen. In 2009, Raymond Woollard was denied renewal of his CCW permit in Maryland because he couldn’t prove that a threat against him existed outside of his home even after he tussled with a burglar in his home in 2002. So he took it to court. I’ve also heard that he has named the state police in his lawsuit because they denied his application for renewal;
In an opinion filed Monday, U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg says a requirement that residents show a “good and substantial reason” to carry a handgun infringes their Second Amendment right to bear arms. He says it isn’t sufficiently tailored to the state’s public safety interests.
I never owned a handgun while I lived in Maryland, so I can’t speak with authority, just repeat what I’ve heard – in order to get a CCW license you have to prove imminent harm will befall you if you don’t have a weapon outside your home. The police require some sort of proof. It seems to me that living in Baltimore is proof enough, but not according to state authorities.
The range I use is in Maryland and I have the tightest sphincter you’ve ever seen while I make the trip. I don’t drive too fast or too slow, hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel. Maryland doesn’t fool around with guns. Even having a loaded magazine is like carrying a loaded weapon in the eyes of Maryland law, whether you have a gun that fits the magazine or not. And the range is like a free-fire zone, Marylanders shoot like they drive. Probably because everyone else is reluctant to train properly with the weapon, too.
So I’m glad to see this judge take a whack at a measure of fairness for gun owners in Maryland.
Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists
Link to WaPo article on the ruling:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/apnewsbreak-federal-judge-finds-md-handgun-permit-law-infringes-2nd-amendment-rights/2012/03/05/gIQAY5UosR_story.html
For what it’s worth: Legg was appointed to the Federal bench by President George H. W. Bush.
“Good and substantial reason”? Nothing like being vague and overly broad when passing a law. Now, will Maryland do the right thing, or will they be like Chicago, and Chicago’s favorite son, and just ignore what the courts say?
“And the range is like a free-fire zone, Marylanders shoot like they drive.” You mean that they all immediately get in the left hand lane then load magazines, figure out that they don’t have ear protection, talk on cell phones, and walk down range so no one else can shoot?
#3 That’s why my friends/family and I go to the range early in the middle of the week. Generally no one there. I went on New Year’s Eve a couple years ago, there had to have been 75 people on the range’s dozen lanes.
@2, Or they could be like my state and make it easier to carry but then look the other way when the local authorities allow local businesses to put a ban on their customers and employees from carrying.
I remember when Iowa was similar to Maryland…not quite as strict (depending on what county you lived in and how much of a dick the sheriff was) but I recall walking in and hoping my reasoning to want to carry was good enough for the sheriff to sign off on.
Jane, I got my first CCW permit after I retired. I filled out the paperwork and turned it in, and got invited to meet with the CCW Board, which included the sheriff, the prosecutor and a county commissioner. I explained that, among the reasons I wanted a permit was the fact that, in my previous occupation, I had put people in prison, and some had vowed to not let me forget they were pissed. Some of those people lived within 5 miles of my home.
The sheriff asked, with a straight face, “why do you think they’d come after you”? He couldn’t seem to get the idea that some of those folks didn’t appreciate 2, 4, 5 years or more of lifting weights and watching TV, no cigs and no booze might make them a bit cantankerous. And, the sheriff was a retired State Police bureau commander. Of course, I don’t think he’d ever put anyone in prison, but I’d bet he wrote a lot of tickets in his day. I can only imagine what some of the other citizens went thru in front of this board of “enlightened” bureaucrats.
Anyway, the board “granted” me a CCW permit, good in every county in the state, except the county I lived in. Thank the common sense of the citizens for turning Michigan into a “shall issue” state.
In most of Calif it’s almost impossible to get a CCW- unless you know somebody or have alot of money. I think the NRA should do a survey- in the states who are more anti gun, I suspect they have more firearms accidents because people don’t go and get training…because they’re afraid if they ask, the state will take their guns away.
Some places I travle in CA, I take 2 guns! I felt safer in Bosnia.
“Because it’s in the US Constitution” is good and substantial reason enough for one judge. Nice.
Yeah the gun laws in Maryland do violate the constitution. I go to gun range up in Pennsylvania when i’m home. It’s getting so you don’t dare shoot your weapon , even on your property in Frederick County there’s so many laws.
How about you make them watch every episode of The Wire?
The day they make them available, is the day I go get mine. I am lucky that a friend of mine has land in Frederick County and has us over to shoot whenever we want. Guess it helps hes a Cops kid.
The most frustrating part of staying up on your training is that the costs at the ranges around here is insane. They know they have you when the rates are $40-60 for 30 mins, or close to a grand for a membership for year.
The range I use is a Maryland State Park, and the fees are $5/day or $25/year.
$40-60 for 30 mins?! The range I go to is $6/hour.
@10 – “How about you make them watch every episode of The Wire?”
From my friends who’ve lived in or near Baltimore, that couldn’t closer to the truth.
Makes me glad, for all it’s faults, that I live in Virginia.
Awesome! Massachusetts uses the same damn wording if you try to get a permit there, and it is a violation of the 2nd amendment! I like the Vermont law – if you can legally buy a firearm, you can legally carry it. No permit required. As for me I live in Utah, my permit is good in 33 states. I also have my ccw from Arizona, which adds five more states of reciprocity (including Nevada). As for ranges, I have no use for them. That’s what the west desert is for. Thirty minutes of driving and I’m standing in the middle of the salt flats.
#6, UpNorth – I’m former law enforcement myself. But I’m betting our experiences were probably quite different. Most of my law enforcement time was spent online pretending to be a 13 year old girl who liked “mature men.” The guys I put away were not the type of people you expect to get out of prison and come looking for you.
Wow. As a kid in Northern NH we stepped out on the back porch and commenced firing, 22’s, 357/9mm and 12 gauge skeet (nice mountain backstop). Couple of small pine trees had an interesting growth pattern due to the tops getting clipped off. It was challenging to find a place to shoot now that we are more mid state and surrounded by a more Dem voting demographic. Located a woods range for $15 a year. We tend to shoot non standard hours which tracks some other “interesting” characters that show up. My faith in the next generation has been renewed after seeing their conduct. Next phase it to get the primitives out and functioning again.
#15, Concur with VT law standards.
Live close to the NH/VT border and no worries about stepping on toes crossing the river, now if Maine would have reciprocity.
Massachusetts and New York are lost causes, hate driving to drill there. Getting too long in the tooth for the hand to hand stuff.
My plan is to maintain SA and be ready to punch the throttle, and keep the Trail Hawk available….
H1–the definition of culture shock is when I moved here six years ago from CA and went through the process of getting a CCW permit.
I didn’t even bother with CA. NH? I’ve spent longer standing in line at the store buying milk.
Utah Vet, I dealt mostly with car thieves and burglars. The close-by ex-cons were all burglars. Not very good burglars, but burglars none the less. I run into a few of them every now and then, but most of them are so far into the meth pipe that I doubt they’d know their mommas. All the more reason to carry.
UtahVet…. Damn… That was YOU??? 🙂
Seriously, as the Father of 3 girls, thanks for putting those bastards where they belong!
As far as carrying here in Georgia, now that they’ve removed the “public gathering” law It’s much easier to know where and when a weapon is prohibited, (and I avoid those situations.). So far, signs still have no leagle weight here, but if you’re caught carrying in a business that doesn’t want you to be armed, they can ask you to leave, and you must go or face trespass charges. Thats why concealed is simpler. besides, I’d rather be the surprise at the party. 🙂
Registration means confiscation.
NO
FURTHER
COMMENT,
R
That’s what I like about living in Spartanburg county SC. Our sheriff says get a permit, please. Now he and a few deputies are holding weapon safety meetings all over the county.
SENATE BILL 1108
AN ACT AMENDING SECTIONS 4-229, 13-3102, 13-3105 AND 13-3112,
ARIZONA REVISED STATUTES; RELATING TO WEAPONS.
As of 12:01 a.m. July 2010, it became legal for any Arizona citizen, who is legally able to own a firearm, to carry it concealed within the state, without a permit.
All hail Arizona. 🙂