Federal court agrees to reconsider ruling finding Maryland law requiring handgun licenses unconstitutional
BALTIMORE — A federal appeals court will reconsider its ruling that found a Maryland law unconstitutional that requires residents to get a handgun qualification license before purchasing or obtaining a firearm.
In November, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found a provision of the state’s Firearm Safety Act of 2013 to be illegal.
Gun rights advocates touted the split, 2-1 decision as a victory for the Second Amendment and individual liberties, while proponents of firearm safety called the ruling dangerous.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat who became a defendant in a lawsuit against his predecessor, Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, appealed the panel’s ruling, asking to argue the case again to the entire Fourth Circuit bench.
On Thursday, the appeals court agreed to hear the case. Oral argument is scheduled for March at the Lewis F. Powell Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Richmond, Virginia.
The office of Maryland’s Attorney General Anthony Brown, which represented the state against the lawsuit, argued that the panel’s ruling ran afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which undid New York’s gun licensing requirements and upended the licensing process in several other states, including Maryland.
In that case, the Democratic attorney general’s office said, the high court okayed licensing programs like Maryland’s requiring “applicants to undergo a background check or pass a firearms safety course, [and thus] are designed to ensure only that those bearing arms in the jurisdiction are, in fact, ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens.'”
Brown issued a statement following the court’s decision to reconsider the appeal, describing the legal debate as one that has real ramifications for gun violence.
“The ongoing gun violence plaguing our streets and our communities continues to take innocent lives and tear families apart,” Brown said. “I welcome the court’s decision to rehear this case and will continue to defend common-sense gun laws to protect Marylanders from these unnecessary and very preventable tragedies. Hopes and wishes do not take guns off our streets, but common-sense gun safety laws do.”
The provision of the handgun law in question bars Marylanders from buying, renting or receiving a handgun unless they have received a valid handgun qualification license. It also outlaws selling, renting, gifting or transferring a firearm to a person without a license.
In Maryland, applicants have to be state residents and at least 21 years old to get a handgun license. They must pass a firearm safety course and undergo a background check, which ensures they aren’t prohibited from owning a gun under state or federal law. Maryland State Police issue the license. The agency’s review of applications takes up to 30 days.
Fourth Circuit Appeals Judge Julius N. Richardson, an appointee of former President Donald Trump from South Carolina, authored the three-judge panel’s majority opinion that deemed Maryland’s law unconstitutional. He cited the same Supreme Court case that Brown relied on in his appeal, saying that ruling meant states had to prove a challenged gun law was similar to “a historically recognized exception to the right to keep and bear arms.”
The panel’s decision reversed a ruling by the U.S. District Court of Maryland that found the law constitutional after the challenge brought by the firearm rights organization Maryland Shall Issue, two individual plaintiffs and a gun shop.
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