Maryland, model of gun control, torn asunder by activist Federal judge!

[CountDeMoney]

State gun-carry law unconstitutional, federal judge rules
Attorney general plans to appeal decision

A federal judge has declared unconstitutional a provision in Maryland law regulating who can carry a handgun, effectively loosening the restrictions governing firearm possession on the state's streets.

In a 23-page memorandum opinion, made public Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Benson E. Legg said a state requirement forcing those applying for a gun-carry permit to show that they have a "good and substantial reason" to do so "impermissibly infringes the right to keep and bear arms," as guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

"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."

The ruling was hailed alternately as a victory by gun enthusiasts, who saw it as a bolster to public safety, and as a dangerous precedent by gun opponents, who painted it as a return to the Wild West.

The Maryland attorney general's office vowed to appeal the ruling and request a stay of its implementation, while the plaintiff's lawyers have promised to fight to uphold it. Meanwhile, one Republican legislator is trying to change the law itself by erasing the requirement.

"I have a bill that does exactly what the court said we needed to do," said Del. Michael D. Smigiel Sr., who represents Caroline, Cecil, Kent and Queen Anne's counties. "It's there, it's been discussed, I have enough votes to get it out of committee. But for political reasons, it would never get out and have a chance to have a vote."

He's hopeful that the ruling will strengthen his efforts and garner bipartisan support for an often polarizing issue.

On one side are people like Chuck Ammann, a 67-year-old from Parkville who has owned a gun since he was 10. His father took him target shooting as a boy, and he still practices as an adult, but he also keeps guns for protection in his home. He's recently applied for a carry permit, because he tends to handle a lot of cash.

"Guns don't kill people, people kill people," Ammann said Monday, repeating an adage favored by gun proponents. In Maryland, "you don't let the good guys carry them," he said, "but every day you read in the paper that the bad guys have them and they do not have permits."

He applauded Legg's decision, which was based on a Baltimore County man's lawsuit that was supported by the Second Amendment Foundation, a national gun rights advocacy group, with some funding from Maryland Shall Issue, a local organization.

On the other side are groups such as the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which works to limit access to firearms.

"It's perfectly reasonable and prudent for Maryland to have law enforcement decide who has a demonstrated need to carry loaded guns in public. There's a whole other level of risk that the public is exposed to when civilians carry loaded guns on public parks, streets, in restaurants, what have you," said Jonathan Lowy, director of the Brady Center's Legal Action Project, which submitted a brief in the Maryland federal case, claiming that loosening the law would be detrimental.

"Maryland's law is completely reasonable, and to hold that the Constitution does not allow Maryland to make that reasonable decision, we think, is not supported by the case law," Lowy said. This decision "would be a very dangerous precedent to remain on the books. We hope and expect it to be reversed."

Maryland's gun laws require permits for people wishing to carry handguns outside the home. They're issued by the secretary of the state police to those who can show, among other things, that they aren't violent, convicted felons, alcoholics or drug addicts.

The secretary also was required, until now, to determine if the applicant "has good and substantial reason to wear, carry, or transport a handgun, such as a finding that the permit is necessary as a reasonable precaution against apprehended danger."

That's the provision that drew a challenge to the law.

On Christmas Eve of 2002, Raymond Woollard was at home at his Baltimore County farm with his extended family, when his son-in-law broke into the house, high on drugs and demanding his wife's car keys so he could buy more, according to court records. Woollard pointed a shotgun at the man, who wrestled it away, but was soon subdued by another family member, who trained a second gun on him. The man was held there for more than two hours, while the Woollards waited for police to arrive.

Woollard applied for a handgun carry permit in 2003, and was allowed to renew it in 2006, shortly after his son-in-law was released from prison, having been convicted of multiple offenses in separate instances.

But Woollard's 2009 renewal application was denied because he couldn't "produce evidence of a current threat," Legg's decision said, or a good and substantial reason to carry a weapon, such as carrying a lot of cash for business or working in a high-risk or regulated profession, like law enforcement and armored car personnel.

After exhausting his appeal options, Woollard filed a lawsuit against Col. Terrence B. Sheridan, then superintendent of the Maryland State Police, and three members of the Maryland Handgun Permit Review Board in 2010, claiming the requirement was unconstitutional.

Legg decided the case by asking two basic questions: whether the Second Amendment protections extend beyond the home, and, if so, whether the "good and substantial" reasoning requirement "passes constitutional muster."

His thinking was guided by two landmark rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court that helped define the constitutional stance on gun ownership. A 2008 decision, overturning a decades-old ban on gun possession in the District of Columbia, found that citizens are entitled "to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation," not just in militia circumstances. And a 2010 decision that followed it extended the right to all states — including Maryland — under the "equal protection clause" of the 14th Amendment.

Because the right to bear arms is understood to allow for hunting and militia training, it can't stop at one's front door, Legg held. He further found that Maryland's "good and substantial reason" requirement had no purpose other than to limit the number of guns on the street.

"Those who drafted and ratified the Second Amendment surely knew that the right they were enshrining carried a risk of misuse, and states have considerable latitude to channel the exercise of the right in ways that will minimize that risk," Legg wrote. "States may not, however, seek to reduce the danger by means of widespread curtailment of the right itself."

Woollard could not be reached for comment Monday, but his attorneys, Cary Hansel and Alan Gura, called the court decision a "sweeping victory" that "brings Maryland's extremist approach much more in line with the common sense regulation seen in the rest of the country."

There are now 12,000 active carry permits in Maryland, according to a state police spokesman.

That number is expected to rise exponentially if the judge's opinion stands. Paul Dembowski, legislative director for Maryland Shall Issue, based in Annapolis, said a 10-fold increase would be reasonable, and Smiegel claims "tens of thousands of people" have been waiting for access to the permits."

But prosecutors see the ruling as a setback for the state.

"We disagree with this ruling," Assistant Attorney General Matthew Fader said in an emailed statement. "In light of the very important implications of the ruling for public safety, the defendants will be appealing to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals."

[CountDeMoney]

Excerpt of the judge's ruling:

This case requires the Court to answer two fundamental questions. The first asks whether the Second Amendment's protections extend beyond the home, -where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute.¿ Heller, 554 U.S. at 628. This question was left unanswered in Heller, and has not been authoritatively addressed in the Fourth Circuit's post-Heller decisions. Second, if the right to bear arms does extend beyond the home, the Court must decide whether Maryland's requirement that a permit applicant demonstrate -good and substantial reason to wear or carry a handgun passes constitutional muster.

The Maryland statute's failure lies in the overly broad means by which it seeks to advance this undoubtedly legitimate end. The requirement that a permit applicant demonstrate -good and substantial reason¿ to carry a handgun does not, for example, advance the interests of public safety by ensuring that guns are kept out of the hands of those adjudged most likely to misuse them, such as criminals or the mentally ill. ... Rather, the regulation at issue is a rationing system. It aims, as Defendants concede, simply to reduce the total number of firearms carried outside of the home by limiting the privilege to those who can demonstrate good reason beyond a general desire for self-defense.

These arguments prove too much. While each possibility presents an unquestionable threat to public safety, the challenged regulation does no more to combat them than would a law indiscriminately limiting the issuance of a permit to every tenth applicant. The solution, then, is not tailored to the problem it is intended to solve. Maryland's "good and substantial reason requirement" will not prevent those who meet it from having their guns taken from them, or from accidentally shooting themselves or others, or from suddenly turning to a life of crime.

A law that burdens the exercise of an enumerated constitutional right by simply making that right more difficult to exercise cannot be considered -reasonably adapted¿ to a government interest, no matter how substantial that interest may be. Maryland's goal of -minimizing the proliferation of handguns among those who do not have a demonstrated need for them, is not a permissible method of preventing crime or ensuring public safety; it burdens the right too broadly.

[CountDeMoney]

Meanwhile, back at the Batshit Cave:

Pro-gun lawmakers want permits from state police

Three House lawmakers fired off a letter to the state police late Monday requesting that the agency immediately start issuing more gun permits in the wake of the recent federal court decision that loosened the rules about who can walk around with weapons.

Del. Michael A. McDermott, a lower Shore Republican, said that "the people of Maryland" have been "crying" for changes in the guns laws for years. "It is a great day for Maryland," he said at a Tuesday news conference. "Now we have a liberty that should not have been denied in the first place."

On Monday, a federal judge declared unconstitutional the state's rule that gun applicants must prove they have a "good and substantial reason" to be armed. The following disqualifiers remain: felony charges, mental illness, drug or alcohol abuse, and a track record of violence.

Maryland's Attorney General plans to appeal the decision and will ask that it be stayed in the meantime.

Del. Michael Smigiel, an Eastern Shore Republican, wants the decision to be implemented now. "The right to self defense comes from God," he said. "The second amendment applies outside the home."

Smigiel is one of the few state lawmakers with a permit to carry a gun (as a lawyer, he said he needs one because he carries around large quantities of cash.) Del. Don Dwyer, an Anne Arundel Republican who also signed the letter, said the he will not apply for a permit "until his neighbor can."

Smigiel, Dwyer and McDermott are also asking the state police to start recognizing out-of-state gun carry permits because, they say, the agency used Maryland's "good and substantial reason" test as a rational for denying them. "Clearly, the recent court decision has determined that these applied standards have been inappropriate and unconstitutional," according to the letter.

The state police did not immediately reply to questions about the letter. This blog will be updated with their response.

State police spokesman Greg Shipley said he is not yet able to respond to the letters.

Shipley said that in 2011 the state police received 5,216 applications for carry permits. Of those 251 were denied -- 179 because the police did not see a "good and substantial reason" for issuing the permit.

[Eddie Teach]

"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."

Good point.

[CountDeMoney]

And the Baltimore Sun returns fire:

The attack on Maryland's gun laws
Our view: A federal judge finds the state's limit on handgun permits unconstitutional in a win for the NRA crowd but a potential loss for public safety

Maryland's restrictions on carrying a handgun outside the home have been among the strongest in the nation — and for good reason, given the death and destruction perpetrated by those possessing handguns in this state. So it is regrettable that the standard is now under threat because a federal judge, emboldened by a pair of recent Supreme Court decisions that have expanded the reach of the Second Amendment, has found a portion of the law unconstitutional.

Make no mistake, U.S. District Court Judge Benson Everett Legg is pushing the Second Amendment envelope in his 23-page opinion that an existing restriction on handgun carry permits — that the applicant must show a "good and substantial reason" to have one — infringes on the individual's right to keep and bear arms. He admits as much in his decision.

The foundation the judge uses, the Supreme Court's ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008 and McDonald v. City of Chicago in 2010, spoke chiefly to the regulations of firearms inside the home. While we disagreed with those opinions and the activist court's departure from the long-held view of the Second Amendment as a collective right in favor of its conferring an individual right, it's not shocking that the boundaries would be pushed even further.

Maryland is not the only battlefield upon which this Second Amendment war is being waged. New York and New Jersey have had their similarly restrictive handgun carry laws challenged in federal court as well — although in both instances, judges have stood by existing statutes. Permit restrictions in a handful of other states are under constitutional challenge, too.

And while the National Rifle Association and other Second Amendment absolutists are no doubt cheered by the decision, their victory is modest and temporary at best. Judge Legg did not order the state to grant a permit to any Tom, Dick or Harry who walks in the door. His qualm was with Maryland's requirement that applicants demonstrate a "good and substantial" reason for needing to carry a gun outside the home. Other restrictions, including a Maryland State Police criminal background check, are not at issue.

What appears to offend Judge Legg is the specter of a "rationing" of permits. Clearly, he believes the state bears the burden of demonstrating why a person is undeserving to carry a handgun in public rather than the applicant having to justify his or her need for one.

It's entirely possible that the Maryland statute could be rewritten in a manner that meets the judge's requirements without resulting in a flood of additional permits. Language could be crafted that is far more specific and where the foundation in public safety is made clear. But it's far too early to even discuss such a reform in the General Assembly, given that the ruling is now headed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and could face years of legal wrangling.

Still, what's troubling about the ruling is the judge's failure to recognize just how great a threat handguns pose to the citizens of Maryland and how putting more loaded weapons on the street is only going to exacerbate that problem. Even the case that landed the issue before Judge Legg is hardly a convincing argument for loosening the carry standards.

The decision not to renew Raymond Woollard's handgun permit was hardly a "random" enforcement. The Baltimore County resident did once use a gun for self-defense — a shotgun, in his home, and it was turned against him by his son-in-law. The state did allow him to carry a handgun for six years after the incident but eventually determined that he was no longer threatened and chose not to renew his permit, as his "good and substantial reason" had faded away over time.

Nothing in Maryland law would keep Mr. Woollard from owning a handgun, or a shotgun for that matter, and using it to defend his home. But carrying a loaded handgun into a street or other public place is another matter that has the potential to affect many other lives, and the state legislature determined long ago that the epidemic of gun violence in Baltimore and elsewhere requires some sensible limitations.

It would be nice to think that everyone who gets a handgun permit is an honest, upstanding citizen interested only in self-defense. Unfortunately, that doesn't square with the facts. One recent study by the Violence Policy Center documents 11 law enforcement officers killed in a two-year period by people using handguns who either had a permit for the concealed weapon or did not need one. The same study cited 30 murder-suicides under the same circumstances between 2007 and 2009.

But such arguments seldom appease those who believe the Second Amendment knows no bounds. Yet even in Heller, the Supreme Court found that some limits apply outside the home. The question is whether public safety needs outweigh individual interests. We think Maryland had already struck the appropriate balance for its circumstances by severely restricting handgun carry permits. We can only hope that the courts will eventually recognize that fact, too.

[Syt]

(as a lawyer, he said he needs one because he carries around large quantities of cash.)

Lawyers. You can always recognize them by the bad pockets. Lawyers always carry drugs. Ruin the line of their pants.

[CountDeMoney]

"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."

Good point.

Not really.

[Eddie Teach]

It's not really a right if you have to ask permission first.

[Habbaku]

"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."

Good point.

Not really.

Nuh-uh.

[Berkut]

It's a great point - if the 2nd provides for the right to carry the gun in the first place, then clearly you don't need to show any reason to exercise that right.

[Syt]

For me (and I'm certainly not a pro-gun activist) this is a pretty good point:

Maryland's "good and substantial reason requirement" will not prevent those who meet it from having their guns taken from them, or from accidentally shooting themselves or others, or from suddenly turning to a life of crime.

From what I understand the goal was (among other things) to keep guns out of the "wrong hands"(TM), but does not really do much to prevent that by making you give some sort of resonable excuse explanation that you need one.

[Hansmeister]

Wasn't Baltimore the murder capital?  So all those restrictive gun laws didn't do anything to reduce the murder rate.

Who knew that people who intend to murder somebody with a gun don't care whether they have a permit or not when carrying a weapon?

[Caliga]

Wasn't Baltimore the murder capital?  So all those restrictive gun laws didn't do anything to reduce the murder rate.

Who knew that people who intend to murder somebody with a gun don't care whether they have a permit or not when carrying a weapon?

[Darth Wagtaros]

Wasn't Baltimore the murder capital?  So all those restrictive gun laws didn't do anything to reduce the murder rate.

Who knew that people who intend to murder somebody with a gun don't care whether they have a permit or not when carrying a weapon?

Can you prove those murders were committed with illegal guns? Let's start with that baseline.

[PDH]

Admit it, you just wanted to use "torn asunder" today, didn't you?