Appeals court strikes down Maryland handgun license requirement

At present, Maryland law requires would-be purchasers to wait up to 30 days, pass a background check, pass a safety course, and seek the license prior to obtaining a firearm.

By Ben Whedon

Published: November 21, 2023 3:32pm

A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down a Maryland requirement that individuals seeking to purchase a handgun obtain a permit first.

The three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in favor of tossing the permit requirement, citing a 2022 Supreme Court decision that upended New York's concealed carry permitting process, The Hill reported. Last year, the top court ruled in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen against an Empire State requirement that concealed carry permit applicants demonstrate a need to carry a firearm.

That decision imposed a gun control standing requiring proponents of a law to show that such restrictions would fall within the U.S.'s "historical tradition of firearm regulation." Trump-appointed Judge Julius Richardson ultimately determined that the permit requirement lacked any historical precedent and was thus illegitimate in light of the SCOTUS-imposed standard

"In Maryland, if you are a law-abiding person who wants a handgun, you must wait up to thirty days for the state to give you its blessing. Until then, there is nothing you can do; the issue is out of your control," he wrote. "Maryland has not shown that this regime is consistent with our Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. There might well be a tradition of prohibiting dangerous people from owning firearms."

"But, under the Second Amendment, mechanism matters. And Maryland has not pointed to any historical laws that operated by preemptively depriving all citizens of firearms to keep them out of dangerous hands. Plaintiffs’ challenge thus must succeed, and the district court’s contrary decision must be reversed," he concluded.

At present, Maryland law requires would-be purchasers to wait up to 30 days, pass a background check, pass a safety course, and seek the license prior to obtaining a firearm. The panel determined that the license requirement ran afoul of the Second Amendment.

It remains unclear if the state plans to appeal the decision.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.