The Biden administration that pushed efforts to limit citizen’s gun rights suffered another in a series of legal setbacks.
On Tuesday, a federal appeals court judge ruled that Maryland’s handgun license law violated the Second Amendment.
Democratic Maryland legislatures passed a law requiring potential handgun orders to first secure a “handgun qualification license.” The law required a background investigation and a waiting period of up to 30 days.
Critics of the law argued the criteria to be approved for a “license” was vague and arbitrary.
On Tuesday, the Fourth Circuit ruled the law was not “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
The appeals court judge said that the law wrongly “prohibits all people from acquiring handguns until they can prove that they are not dangerous. So Maryland’s law burdens all people — even if only temporarily — rather than just a class of people whom the state has already deemed presumptively dangerous.”
In announcing his ruling, Judge Julius Richardson, a Trump appointee, noted that Maryland’s handgun licensing law did not meet the recently articulated standard the Supreme Court established in the landmark New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen case.
Richardson said: “In Maryland, if you are a law-abiding person who wants a handgun, you must wait up to thirty days for the state to give you its blessing.”
The judge added: “Until then, there is nothing you can do; the issue is out of your control. Maryland has not shown that this regime is consistent with our Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
Gun rights advocates across the country are hailing the ruling, which could have far-reaching implications.
Richardson clarified that his ruling did not impact the code limiting criminals and those with mental illness from owning a weapon.
Senior Judge Barbara Milano Keenan, an Obama appointee, wrote the dissenting opinion repudiating Richardson for advocating a “hyperaggressive view of the Second Amendment” and warned that his ruling would significantly impact citizens across the country.
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