DOJ Looking at Options in Montgomery County Gun Law Challenge

On Monday, Cam reported that a judge threw out the DOJ's challenge to a Montgomery County, MD, gun restriction. The judge's argument was that the Department of Justice didn't have the authority to challenge the law under the statute it cited, in part because the DOJ didn't cite any actual enforcement.

Which is a stupid reason, in my book, because the fact that the law exists is de facto enforcement on the law-abiding. No one needs to go to prison for the law to be a problem.

Now, the DOJ is considering its options.

The U.S. Department of Justice will contemplate how to proceed after a federal judge this week dismissed its challenge of a Montgomery County restriction on firearms in public places that the administration claims is unconstitutional.

“The Department is assessing the decision and next steps, but remains committed to protecting the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens in Maryland,” Justice Department spokesperson Kiersten Pels said in email Tuesday.

Judge Theodore Chuang of the U.S. District Court for Maryland wrote in a 33-page opinion Monday that the federal government was not likely to prevail in its challenge of the law, which was passed as an emergency measure in July.

That law prohibits firearms within 100 yards of public locations like government buildings, parks and schools. It actually narrows the scope of prohibited areas, removing hospitals, healthcare and childcare facilities and others, to comply with a separate court ruling, Chuang wrote.

...

The Justice Department charged that the law violated the Second Amendment right to bear arms as well as the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. That law allows the attorney general to file civil action to “obtain appropriate equitable and declaratory relief to eliminate the pattern or practice” that “deprives persons of rights, privileges, or immunities” protected in this country. It came into place after the police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1991.

The county argued that Justice had not provided any evidence that county police were engaged in a “pattern or practice” of prohibited behavior over the week-old law. Chuang agreed, writing that the suit was “devoid of any allegations of any actual conduct by law enforcement officers relating in any way” to the new law.

Again, I disagree with that argument. The fact that the law exists is a "pattern or practice" that warns law-abiding citizens not to carry in these places. Those who do are either not law-abiding in the first place or simply ignorant that they're in an area where they can't carry.

Frankly, I think Chuang blew it.

My gut tells me that they'll appeal the ruling, because I do believe they can make the case that the law's existence is enough of a burden in and of itself. They just need to find a friendlier judge, I suspect. Assuming they can get one short of the Supreme Court. 

Honestly, I think Chuang was trying to manufacture a reason to rule against the Department of Justice here, and this is what he could hang his hat on, because the truth is that 100 yards includes a lot of space beyond what anyone can reasonably call a "sensitive location." Considering that in some neighborhoods, that can create such an overlapping field that no lawful carry is possible just makes this particular law more galling and a direct violation of the spirit of Bruen, if not the absolute letter of it.

Which, considering this is Maryland, was the entire point of Montgomery County's law in the first place.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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