A federal judge blocked portions of a 2023 Maryland law that would have prohibited licensed gun owners from carrying firearms in bars and restaurants and in private buildings without the owner’s permission.
Chief U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III also invalidated a separate Maryland regulation banning guns near public demonstrations.
The judge, however, upheld other gun restrictions in the new state law facing legal challenges, including bans on carrying firearms in health care facilities, schools, government buildings, mass transit facilities, amusement parks, racetracks, casinos, museums, state parks and stadiums.
The decision reaffirms what Russell ruled in September, when he issued a preliminary injunction blocking portions of the Gun Safety Act of 2023. Maryland lawmakers passed the bill in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, which changed the legal framework used in Second Amendment cases and rendered concealed-carry policies in New York, Maryland and five other states unconstitutional.
The law restricts the locations where people with licenses from the Maryland State Police could carry their firearms in public. A group of plaintiffs that included several gun-rights advocacy organizations and Susannah Warner Kipke, the wife of Anne Arundel County Del. Nic Kipke, sued over the law and other similar gun regulations in 2023.
Under the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, Russell had to assess whether Maryland’s gun laws had historical precedent. The judge found that some of the regulations, such as the ban on carrying guns on school grounds and hospitals, are allowed under the U.S. Constitution because they are “consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
Other restrictions did not pass muster. Russell found that the state’s ban on carrying guns in private buildings without the express permission of the owner is unconstitutional, as are the limits on carrying guns in establishments that serve alcohol and within 1,000 feet of a public demonstration (after receiving warning from a law enforcement officer).
“The devastating effects of firearm violence on Marylanders and United States citizens are self-evident,” Russell wrote in September when he upheld the other parts of the law. “Enjoining enforcement of the Maryland firearm restrictions that either protect sensitive places or are consistent with historical regulations would undermine the public’s interest in preventing gun violence.”
The Maryland Attorney General’s Office declined to comment on the ruling, which Maryland Matters first reported.
Mark Pennak, president of the gun rights organization Maryland Shall Issue, which sued over the gun regulations, said his organization is considering appealing the decision to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“We are very pleased that the judge reaffirmed what he held a year ago,” said Pennak, referring to Russell’s decision to invalidate restrictions on carrying guns at restaurants, public demonstrations and privately owned buildings that are open to the public.
“He sustained the rest of the bans that the Kipke plaintiffs challenged, and those are under consideration for appeal,” Pennak said.
Maryland gun rights advocates separately lost another appeal Tuesday before the 4th Circuit. The federal appeals court in Richmond upheld Maryland’s assault-style weapons ban in an opinion that found regulating “excessively dangerous weapons” compatible with the Second Amendment.
The 4th Circuit is weighing another major Maryland gun control law, its handgun licensing requirement. The full panel of judges heard the case in the spring, as it did the assault weapons case, but has not yet issued that opinion.
___
© 2024 Baltimore Sun
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
