Maryland Dems Push to Bar Concealed Carry for Self Defense in Public Places

Maryland Democrats are pushing restrictions for licensed concealed carry that would prevent the legal carriers from being armed for self defense in pubic places.

WBAL-TV reports that State Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher (D) is pushing the Gun Safety Act of 2023, would bans concealed carry in “schools, hospitals, libraries, synagogues, churches, mosques. Also parks, restaurants, anywhere the public is gathering.”

The synopsis of Waldstreicher’s bill says: “Prohibiting a person from knowingly wearing, carrying, or transporting a firearm onto the real property of another unless the other has given certain permission to the person or the public generally; and prohibiting a person from knowingly wearing, carrying, or transporting a firearm within 100 feet of a place of public accommodation.”

Waldstreicher stresses his bill would still allow licensed concealed carriers to have a gun in their own home and “other people’s homes, where they have permission of the homeowner.”

In the majority opinion for the Supreme Court of the United State’s NYSRPA v. Bruen (2022) decision, Justice Clarence Thomas noted that the Second Amendment protects an “individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”

Thomas observed that District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010) “recognized that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right of an ordinary, law-abiding citizen to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense.” He then wrote in light of Bruen, saying, “In this case, petitioners and respondents agree that ordinary, law-abiding citizens have a similar right to carry handguns publicly for their self-defense.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.