Fourth Circuit Appeals Court: Maryland Handgun License Requirement Unconstitutional

On Tuesday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found that Maryland’s Handgun Qualification License requirement violated the constitution.

Plaintiffs in the case include Maryland Shall Issue, Inc., Atlantic Guns, Inc., Deborah Kay Miller, and Susan Brancato Vizas.

The case reached the Fourth Circuit panel on appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore

The judges on the panel were Donald Trump appointee Julius N. Richardson, George W. Bush appointee G. Steven Agee, and Barack Obama appointee Barbara Milano Keenan.

Richardson and Agee agreed in the majority against the handgun license requirement and Keenan dissented.

Richardson wrote the majority opinion, noting numerous gun controls surrounding firearm purchases in Maryland and then pointing to a specific gun control — the Handgun Qualification License — pertaining to handguns:

For handguns specifically…there is an additional, preliminary step: You must also obtain a “handgun qualification license.” … Getting that license requires, among other things, submitting fingerprints to undergo a background “investigation” and taking a four-hour-long “firearms safety training course” in which you must fire at least one live round. Then, after submitting your application for this extra license, you must wait up to thirty days for approval before you can start the rest of the process.

He focused on the license’s failure to withstand the scrutiny of Bruen (2022), writing:

Plaintiffs seek to enjoin the state from enforcing only this additional, preliminary handgun-licensure requirement. And Plaintiffs’ challenge must succeed. The challenged law restricts the ability of law-abiding adult citizens to possess handguns, and the state has not presented a historical analogue that justifies its restriction; indeed, it has seemingly admitted that it couldn’t find one. Under the Supreme Court’s new burden-shifting test for … these claims, Maryland’s law thus fails, and we must enjoin its enforcement.

Keenan dissented, noting:

In this facial constitutional challenge to a non-discretionary handgun permitting law, the majority fundamentally misapplies Bruen. The majority bases its holding on the premise that if a law affects a prospective handgun purchaser’s ability to obtain a handgun “now,” the law is presumptively unconstitutional. This sweeping rule flies directly in the face of Bruen’s discussion of non-discretionary “shall-issue” laws and is not supported by any Supreme Court precedent. Simply stated, the majority’s hyperaggressive view of the Second Amendment would render presumptively unconstitutional most non-discretionary laws in this country requiring a permit to purchase a handgun (permitting laws).

Maryland can follow Keenan’s lead and request the Fourth Circuit hear this case en banc or they can appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

The case is Maryland Shall Issue v. Moore, No.  21-2017 in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

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. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. 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