Federal Judge Strikes Down Maryland's Discretionary Permit System

[Dave70968]

BALTIMORE – Maryland residents do not have to provide a "good and substantial reason" to legally own a handgun, a federal judge ruled Monday, striking down as unconstitutional the state's requirements for getting a permit.

U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg wrote that states are allowed some leeway in deciding the way residents exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms, but Maryland's objective was to limit the number of firearms that individuals could carry, effectively creating a rationing system that rewarded those who provided the right answer for wanting to own a gun.

"A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and substantial reason' why he should be permitted to exercise his rights," Legg wrote. "The right's existence is all the reason he needs."

Plaintiff Raymond Woollard obtained a handgun permit after fighting with an intruder in his Hampstead home in 2002, but was denied a renewal in 2009 because he could not show he had been subject to "threats occurring beyond his residence."

Woollard appealed, but his appeal was rejected by the review board, which found he hadn't demonstrated a "good and substantial reason" to carry a handgun as a reasonable precaution. The suit filed in 2010 claimed that Maryland didn't have a reason to deny the renewal and wrongly put the burden on Woollard to show why he still needed to carry a gun.

"People have the right to carry a gun for self-defense and don't have to prove that there's a special reason for them to seek the permit," said his attorney Alan Gura, who has challenged handgun bans in the District of Columbia and Chicago as an attorney with the Second Amendment Foundation. "We're not against the idea of a permit process, but the licensing system has to acknowledge that there's a right to bear arms."

In his ruling, Legg wrote that Second Amendment protections aren't limited to the household.

"In addition to self-defense, the (Second Amendment) right was also understood to allow for militia membership and hunting. To secure these rights, the Second Amendment's protections must extend beyond the home: neither hunting nor militia training is a household activity, and 'self-defense has to take place wherever (a) person happens to be,'" Legg wrote.

"Judge Legg's ruling takes a substantial step toward restoring the Second Amendment to its rightful place in the Bill of Rights and provides gun owners with another significant victory," said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. "The federal district court has carefully spelled out the obvious, that the Second Amendment does not stop at one's doorstep, but protects us wherever we have a right to be."

The lawsuit names the state police superintendent and members of the Handgun Permit Review Board as defendants. A spokesman from Maryland's attorney general's office was not immediately available to comment.

Many states require gun permits, but six states, including Maryland, issue permits on a discretionary basis, Gura said. In most of those states, these challenges have not succeeded in U.S. District Courts, but they are being appealed, he said.

"Most states that choose to regulate the right to bear arms have licensing systems that are objective and straightforward," Gura said. "That's all that we want for Maryland."

TL;DR: We're winning. Again.

 

[TurboFinger]

http://www.okshooters.com/showthread.php?137813-Maryland-Judge-Got-It-Right...

 

[Dave70968]

Yup, I just saw that, and I even looked first. Mods, would you please merge the threads?

 

[ez bake]

"A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and substantial reason' why he should be permitted to exercise his rights. The right's existence is all the reason he needs."

- U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg

This is a very powerful Quote.

 

[Dave70968]

"A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and substantial reason' why he should be permitted to exercise his rights. The right's existence is all the reason he needs."

- U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg

This is a very powerful Quote.

Unfortunately, not so much: he's only a district judge. When it's in an appellate opinion--or better yet, SCOTUS--then it will be powerful. Right now, though, it's only effective in his specific district, and even there it's subject to all sorts of shenanigans by other judges who don't see things quite so clearly.

 

[malexander]

I don't understand. If it's a Constitutional right, then how can states (or anyone else for that matter) outlaw carrying a firearm, open or concealed? I've actually wondered this for quite some time.

 

[ez bake]

I don't understand. If it's a Constitutional right, then how can states (or anyone else for that matter) outlaw carrying a firearm, open or concealed? I've actually wondered this for quite some time.

I don't believe that's a permit to carry a gun, but rather to own/posess one in the state of Maryland (like even in your home).

 

[TurboFinger]

I don't understand. If it's a Constitutional right, then how can states (or anyone else for that matter) outlaw carrying a firearm, open or concealed? I've actually wondered this for quite some time.

any law can be passed by congress(state or federal) but it is the judicial system that decides it's constitutionality. the judicial system is slowly being infiltrated with left leaning judges that will not declare gun restriction laws as unconstitutional.

 

[Rod Snell]

I don't believe that's a permit to carry a gun, but rather to own/posess one in the state of Maryland (like even in your home).

Nope, it's a permit to carry and transport. I lived in Maryland before being transferred to Oklahoma.

You may buy a gun in Maryland without a permit, but even private sales of regulated firearms must go through a FFL, which includes the MD background check and free state safety course.
Once you legally own the gun, you are very restricted on where and how you can transport it, and you can't carry it at all for defense.

For example, It was legal for me to transport my gun from my home to the Izzack Walton Range, but NOT LEGAL to stop at the grocery on the way home and shop with the gun in the trunk. Similarly, it was NOT LEGAL to have the gun in the trunk driving into Silver Spring unless I was taking it (unloaded and cased, of course) to the gunsmith for service. People get into trouble in Maryland playing tourist driving around with guns in the trunk if somebody spots the guns (traffic stop, hotel bellhop, whatever).

I tried to get a Maryland CHL, but was told not to apply unless I was a storekeeper protecting money, or some such. The MSP said they did not issue the MD CHLs for personal protection.

http://www.mdgunsafety.com/mspfaq.htm
http://www.mdsp.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=GwfGW-6srGs=&tabid=423&mid=1072