4th Circuit Court Upholds Maryland Handgun Law

The 4^th Circuit Court of appeals has reversed an earlier decision by a three-judge panel of the same court, upholding Maryland’s Handgun Qualification License (HQL) requirement.

In the case Maryland Shall Issue v. Moore, a three-judge panel last November had ruled that the law was unconstitutional. But the court had vacated the agreement until the case could be heard by the full court, which upheld the law despite the earlier decision.

To purchase a handgun in Maryland, a citizen must first obtain an HQL, which requires taking a four-hour class with classroom and live-fire components, and costs several hundred dollars. Other requirements include undergoing a background check that requires submitting a complete set of fingerprints, which the individual must pay for, paying a $50 application fee and then waiting up to 30 days for the state to process the application.

Note that obtaining the HQL still does not allow one to purchase a handgun. The individual must then undergo an additional background check, wait seven business days and pass a NICS check before acquiring the firearm.

“This case requires us to apply the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen,” the ruling stated. “We conclude that the Supreme Court in Bruen foreclosed the plaintiffs’ ‘temporary deprivation’ argument by stating that, despite some delay occasioned by ‘shall-issue’ permit processes, this type of licensing law is presumptively constitutional because it operates merely to ensure that individuals seeking to exercise their Second Amendment rights are ‘law-abiding’ persons.”

The ruling continued: “We hold that the plaintiffs have failed to rebut this presumption of constitutionality afforded to ‘shall-issue’ licensing laws like the handgun qualification statute. So, the plaintiffs’ challenge to the HQL statute fails, and we affirm the district court’s award of summary judgment to the state of Maryland.”

The court never considered the second Bruen standard—historical precedence—because it ruled that the law doesn’t violate the plaintiffs’ Second Amendment rights. It’s doubtful the state would have been able to come up with comparable laws at the time of the founding to justify the Maryland law.

“A majority of this Court concludes that Maryland’s handgun license requirement doesn’t implicate the plain text of the Second Amendment, which preserves ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,’” the ruling stated. “That is wrong. Maryland’s law regulates acquiring a handgun, and the Second Amendment’s text encompasses that conduct.”

Writing in dissent, Circuit Judge Julius Richardson, a Donald Trump appointee, was displeased with the manner in which the court went about considering the case.

“Our en banc Court carries Maryland’s defense across the finish line,” he wrote. “Yet to do so, the majority stretches implications from Supreme Court dicta to establish a carveout from Supreme Court doctrine. It then defends this result by grounding it in a contrived reading of the Second Amendment’s plain text, for which the majority offers no support beyond negative inference. I cannot assent to this transparent workaround of governing doctrine. The Supreme Court established a two-step, text-and-history framework for assessing all Second Amendment claims. I would treat Maryland’s law like any other and analyze it under this framework.”