Federal court finds Maryland’s handgun licensing law unconstitutional

A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down Maryland’s handgun licensing law as a violation of the Second Amendment.

Maryland law requires people looking for a handgun to first secure a “handgun qualification license,” which involves taking a four-hour firearms safety class, completing a background investigation and waiting up to 30 days. The Fourth Circuit Found that this law is not “consistent with this nation’s historic tradition of firearms regulation,” which is the standard the Supreme Court set in its recent New State Rifle and Pistol Association York v. Bruen. decision.

“In Maryland, if you’re a law-abiding person who wants a gun, you have to wait up to thirty days for the state to give you its blessing,” Trump-appointed Judge Julius Richardson wrote in the majority opinion “Until then, there is nothing you can do; the problem is out of your control. Maryland has not demonstrated that this regime is consistent with our nation’s historic tradition of firearms regulation.”

LEGAL ALERT: The Fourth Circuit has struck down Maryland’s handgun purchase permit law, saying it violates the Second Amendment. https://t.co/Y3hVHHliHv pic.twitter.com/PjbIWoUSm4

— Coalition for Gun Policy (@gunpolicy) November 21, 2023

Richardson wrote that Maryland’s requirement does not fall into the same category as laws that prohibit dangerous people from obtaining guns because it does not identify a specific group to restrict firearms ownership.

“Instead, it prohibits all individuals from acquiring handguns until they can demonstrate that they are not dangerous,” he wrote. “So the Maryland law burdens all people, even if only temporarily, rather than just a class of people the state has already deemed to be presumptively dangerous.”

Chief Justice Barbara Milano Keenan, an Obama appointee, wrote in the dissent that “the majority’s hyper-aggressive view of the Second Amendment will presumptively unconstitutional most of the non-discretionary laws in this country that require a permit to purchase a handgun “.

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