The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) on Wednesday filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court urging the court to hear its lawsuit challenging Maryland’s ban on many common semi-automatic firearms.
In the case Snope v. Brown, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on August 6 that Maryland’s so-called “assault weapons” ban was constitutional under the Second Amendment, a decision that FPC believes was flawed. Plaintiffs in the case included two individuals, the FPC, the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
“As promised, we have petitioned the Supreme Court to review the Fourth Circuit’s terrible decision without delay,” Brandon Combs, FPC president, said in a news release announcing the action. :As a petition from a final judgment with the best Second Amendment litigators in the world at the helm, this case is an ideal vehicle for the Supreme Court to resolve exceptionally important issues. Through this case, the Court can and should make explicit how lower courts should address unconstitutional bans on so-called ‘assault weapons’ and similar laws.”
Combs added that for years, lower courts have “contorted” the Supreme Court’s precedents and wrongly held that the Second Amendment does not protect semi-automatic firearms.
“But these weapons are common numerically, categorically and jurisdictionally, popular for a wide range of lawful purposes from self-defense to sport,” Combs added. “There is no legitimate basis for the 4th Circuit to have concluded that the most widely owned semi-automatic rifles in the United States are not ‘Arms’ protected by the Second Amendment. The Court must provide more guidance on which weapons the Second Amendment covers and they should do so in this case. This immoral and abusive gun control regime must end here.”
In the petition filed with the Supreme Court, FPC argues: “Certiorari is required to correct this increasingly widespread misunderstanding of Heller and to ensure that the Second Amendment itself is not truncated into a limited right to own certain state-approved means of personal self-defense. And in fact, members of the majority in this case joined a chorus of lower court judges asking for this Court’s guidance, noting the significance of the questions implicated here and the need for the Court’s further direction to bring order to the law.”
FPC also argued: “The popularity of the AR-15 is among the most well-evidenced, and frequently discussed, facts about firearms in the country. There are, by almost all estimates, considerably more modern semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 in the United States than there are Ford F-150s, America’s most popular automobile. And that is in spite of the laws, like Maryland’s here, that prohibit tens of millions of Americans from some of our most populous states from acquiring them.”
In the end, plaintiffs are asking the Supreme Court to hear the case without delay and rule, once and for all, whether bans on common semi-automatic rifles should exist given the protections provided by the Second Amendment.
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