The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit on Tuesday upheld a Maryland ban on assault-style semi-automatic rifles. The 10-4 ruling in the case of Kolbe v. Hogan overturned a decision by a three-judge panel of the same court. The ruling held that the designated firearms are "not protected by the Second Amendment." The 2013 law was passed in the wake of the massacre of six adults and 20 first-graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December 2012. The young killer committed the murders with an assault-style rifle, the Bushmaster XM15-E2S, a firearm patterned on the widely available AR-15.
Specifically, the law prohibits sales or other transfers of a list of 81 guns and similar models. It includes both pistols, shotguns, and centerfire, semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable magazines and have at least two of three characteristics—grenade launcher, flash suppressor/flare launcher, or folding stock. Also banned are sales or transfers of magazines than can hold more than 10 rounds. Penalties for buyers and sellers range up to three years in prison.
Tim Dickinson comments:
The federal appeals court—based in Richmond, Virginia, and known for its conservative bent—upheld a Maryland prohibition of assault weapons in unvarnished language, writing that "the banned assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are not constitutionally protected arms."
The Fourth Circuit ruling re-affirms previous court decisions that also placed assault weapons outside the scope of Second Amendment protections of gun ownership. But this ruling [...] goes further by addressing the AR-15 by name, tracing the weapon's military pedigree from the M-16 rifle and finding that the AR-15 can be banned based on the plain language of the Supreme Court's infamous Heller decision. (That ruling, written by the late activist conservative justice Antonin Scalia, discovered a constitutional right for individual gun ownership.)
At issue was whether Maryland has banned firearms that meet the test of "dangerous and unusual weapons" that the Supreme Court said in District of Columbia v. Heller applies to firearms “that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like" and not “in common use for lawful purposes.” Such firearms, the majority ruled, are not protected by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. The majority in Heller ruled that “that each individual has the right to own a gun” and keep it at home, but also noted that government can pass restrictions on ownership as long as they don’t violate that right.
When the Fourth Circuit’s decision goes to the Supreme Court, as it is likely to do when and if Pr*sident Trump and the Senate can get their man added to the eight justices who have been deciding cases since Antonin Scalia died last year, Heller’s reach could be “clarified” in such a way as to overturn the appeals court’s ruling.
The D.C. Circuit and the 7th Circuit have also upheld firearms bans since Heller was decided. The 9th Circuit upheld a restriction on the capacity of magazines.
The four dissenting judges in Kolbe argued that the 4th Circuit ruling is wrong in fact as well as opinion: "As long as the weapon chosen is one commonly possessed by the American people for lawful purposes—and the rifles at issue here most certainly are—the state has very little say about whether its citizens should keep it in their homes for protection."
That, you can be sure, will be at the forefront of gun advocates’ argument when the bans reach the Supreme Court—whenever that happens.