MD Gun Law: Appeals Court To Reconsider Striking Down License

BALTIMORE, MD — A federal appeals court has granted the Maryland attorney general's request for a new hearing two months after a lower court overturned a decade-old state law requiring Marylanders to obtain a license to purchase a handgun.

In a statement released Thursday, Attorney General Anthony Brown said a full appellate court will reconsider the three-judge panel's November ruling that determined the law — which requires potential gun owners to submit fingerprints for a background check and take a firearms safety class — was unconstitutional.

Brown's office filed a petition for a rehearing en banc last month.

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"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."

Brown's office filed the request for a new hearing a day after the ruling was placed on hold following an appeal request by Gov. Wes Moore, the Washington Post reported.

“I welcome the court's decision to rehear this important case. Common sense gun laws are vital to my administration's commitment to keeping guns out of the wrong hands and saving lives," Moore said in a statement late Thursday. "Since Day One I’ve been clear — we have to do more than offer thoughts and prayers when it comes to addressing gun violence and I refuse to be a governor that just stands by and attends funerals while our communities continue to be terrorized. Every Marylander has the right to feel safe in their own neighborhood."

The panel's November ruling was based on a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which found gun restrictions were unconstitutional unless enacted around the time of the Second Amendment’s adoption.

"The challenged law restricts the ability of law-abiding adult citizens to possess handguns, and the state has not presented a historical analog that justifies its restriction; indeed, it has seemingly admitted that it couldn’t find one," Circuit Judge Julius N. Richardson wrote in an opinion obtained by the Baltimore Banner. "Under the Supreme Court’s new burden-shifting test for these claims, Maryland’s law thus fails, and we must enjoin its enforcement."

In last year's decision, the Supreme Court struck down a New York law requiring people to demonstrate a specific need for carrying a gun to get a concealed carry license. In a 6-3 opinion, the justices said the requirement violated the Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.”
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority that the Constitution protects "an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home," according to The Associated Press.

That right is not a "second-class right," Thomas wrote. "We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need."

Maryland is among several states — including California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island — that have laws similar to New York.

Maryland's current regulation for potential gun owners was included in Maryland’s Firearm Safety Act of 2013, which lawmakers enacted following the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead in Connecticut, the Banner reported.