Federal Court Revives Second Amendment Lawsuit

The state of Maryland passed some pretty hinky gun control in the wake of Sandy Hook. There’s no doubt about it, to be sure.

The law in question, the Firearm Safety Act of 2013 required that anyone who wanted to buy a handgun had to attend a 4-hour safety training session. The law also raised the minimum age for handgun sales to 21, which is in compliance with federal law, and required universal background checks for handguns.

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Unsurprisingly, though, a lawsuit was filed in an attempt to combat the law. It was effectively killed at the time because the judge said the plaintiffs didn’t have sufficient standing.

Well, if that lawsuit was truly dead, then zombies are real.

On Monday the appellate court partially vacated the District Court’s dismissal of the case and reinstated it for further deliberations. The Circuit Court determined that the trial court had erred because Atlantic Guns had suffered a concrete injury because the additional cost to potential customers who wished to purchase a handgun had possibly depressed sales following the enactment of the FSA. Because of this injury, the appellate court determined that Atlantic Guns could pursue the Second Amendment claim on behalf of itself and the other parties to the litigation.  But the appellate court rejected the Fourteenth Amendment claims, finding that the District Court correctly dismissed those claims.

Now, this doesn’t mean the lawsuit will be victorious. They’re just saying the District Court dismissed it for the wrong reasons, that Atlantic Guns had standing.

To be fair, the appellate court is correct. Standing does exist and now the lawsuit can continue.

I’m not going to speculate on what the courts will do because I’m not a lawyer and it’s Maryland, a land where the anti-gun sensibility runs pretty damn deep. That likely influences the federal courts in that neck of the woods. In other words, it’s still an uphill slog.

However, there’s now a chance to overturn a particularly bad law. These requirements are vile and they’ve done nothing to curb violence in cities like Baltimore, yet their failure is often used to justify still more regulations on law-abiding citizens that criminals will promptly ignore. Such is the way of criminals and all that crap.

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Make no mistake, though, this is a big win either way. It’s a step forward, a reminder that not everyone is willing to roll over and play along with their anti-gun, anti-constitution nonsense. Laws like this make no one safer–quite the opposite, really–and yet they expect everyone to play along.

Well, we won’t, and this lawsuit is just another reminder that we refuse to just roll over because the narrative demands it of us. No, we’re going to fight. We’ll fight in the courts to start with, but we’ll continue that fight no matter where it may take us. We’re not going anywhere.

Even if that fight involves zombie lawsuits or taking to the streets, they’re not going to win this without a fight, that’s for damn sure.

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