District Court Overrules Maryland Gun Restriction

Maryland’s requirement that residents show a “good and substantial reason” to get a handgun permit is unconstitutional

States can channel the way their residents exercise their Second Amendment right to bear arms, but because Maryland’s goal was to minimize the number of firearms carried outside homes by limiting the privilege to those who could demonstrate “good reason,” it had turned into a rationing system, infringing upon residents’ rights, U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg wrote.

“A citizen may not be required to offer a `good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights,” he 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 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.

Once the Supreme Court ruled that citizens had an individual right to bear arms, the bluer states have sought ways to restrict gun ownership, and the right to concealed carry, in many cases by making the ability to buy a gun and obtain a permit.  Washington D.C. in particular, as the prototypical liberal pseudo-state, makes it extremely difficult to purchase or carry a weapon.

This ruling, if it stands, is a statement against that trend. Kudos to the Court.

More at the Volokh Conspiracy, from someone likely to know what they're talking about.