courtesy slate.com

“The state of Michigan joined a friend-of-the-court brief [click here to read] asking for a federal appeals court to overturn a Maryland gun-control law that would ban certain assault weapons and limit the size of magazines,” mlive.com reports. “The brief is asking the appeals court to overturn a federal district court ruling that a Maryland law banning 45 types of assault weapons and limiting magazine size to 10 rounds as constitutional . . . The brief states Maryland’s Firearm Safety Act of 2013 infringes on each state’s citizens’ Second Amendment rights ‘by imposing a ban on the possession of commonly used weapons that extends to the home.'” Of course, mlive.com has to close with an anti-gun sentiment . . .

According to the brief, among the weapons banned by Maryland’s law is the AR-15, which the states consider one of the most widely-owned rifles in the United States. The AR-15 is also the model of some of the guns used in mass shootings in Newtown, CT., Aurora, CO. and Portland, OR.

The vast majority of crimes committed by criminals and crazies with a firearm involve handguns. I guess mass shootings are more important because they’re scarier, what with armed lunatics mowing down unarmed civilians. SMH. [h/t WS]

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67 COMMENTS

  1. Hmm. What shooting are they talking about in Portland? I don’t recall hearing of any major shootings out there in recent times. Hell, as we know shootings with any rifle are damned rare.

    • There was a guy that went to a mall to start a mass shooting. He killed two people before confronted by a CCW holder who didn’t even fire upon the guy.. He was just confronted when his rifle jammed. He unjammed the rifle after the confrontation and killed himself. The CCW holder didn’t shoot the guy because there was another innocent person running away behind him so all he did was make his presence known and then returned to cover.

      There was a huge media blackout over it because a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun and more or less destroyed the argument the anti-gunners at the time had about it.

      • Didn’t Sandy Hook happen a day or so after this, or do I have it confused with another mall shooting where an off-duty cop took out the shooter?

        • You are correct. That was the Clackamas Mall shooting, same week as Sandy Hook. A licensed concealed carrier, Nick Meli, was there at the mall when the shooting started. Meli took cover, drew his self-defense side arm and stared down the killer, who was struggling to clear a jam in his rifle.

          Meli was about to fire, but saw a bystander beyond the shooter, whom he believed would be hit if he missed. So he didn’t fire. The shooter saw Meli was armed and about to confront him, though, so he fled to a stairwell and killed himself.

          Meli effectively ended the shooting spree. Far from transforming the mall into the free fire zone of the antis’ hopeless, and hopelessly morbid, imaginations, Meli shut it down without firing a shot. The media went radio silent on this event and down the memory hole it went. Then their demonic prayers were answered just days later with Sandy Hook. The rest is gun grabber history, mythology, and propaganda, which we’ve been inundated with ever since.

        • Perhaps, except the tale doesn’t seem especially tall. So I’m not seeing much room for exaggeration. Moreover, it tends to conform with what we already know to be the pattern with these things. Namely, most DGUs do not involve actually discharging your firearm. Many spree killers surrender or run off and kill themselves once confronted with armed resistance.; either way, ending their attack, as was the case here.

          Finally, this has been Mr. Meli’s account since that day, and he hasn’t pursued media exposure to re-tell it endlessly. Strikes me as a regular guy who happened to be at the local mall during Christmas shopping season when something went down, and he responded like many of us would.

    • I’m guessing they meant the one at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, OR (June 10, 2014). Search TTAG for Troutdale, it will come up. If I post the link, the comment gets flagged as spam. I hadn’t heard about it either, which surprised me because I’m no more than a 6 hr drive from Portland, and there isn’t all that much between there and here.

    • Some courts have lots of friends! Guess if the do one banana republic, er….state, at a time, it’s easier. Actually, I was born in Mass. The British can have it back. I like Texas.

  3. >of course, mlive.com has to close with an anti-gun sentiment…
    I’m sorry, were AR15s not used at those shootings? Didnt know facts were now antigun…

      • >Allen, isn’t that the name of several murderers?
        Perhaps. The difference here is, no one is saying it isnt, or implying it isnt, you cretin.

        >Mind you, all facts, no spin. Except, of course, selectivity and half-truths.
        So saying an AR15 model was used in a crime in which an AR15 model was used is a half-truth?

        • @Allen — The whole point is that it doesn’t even matter whichever model of whatever was used to do whichever thing wherever. That is absolutely no excuse whatsoever to ban them.

          The type of tool is and always has been completely irrelevant to the crime. The only ones even trying to make it a sticking point to push an agenda are simply spinning it as a reason to take them away from law-abiding citizens.

          That is the lie. That is the spin. That is the half-truth.

          The only ones afraid of facts ARE the anti-gunners, thank-you-very-much, because they know for damn sure that they don’t have any that even remotely supports their sexist, racist, anti-rights, and anti-Humanist cause.

          The only cretins here are those that agree with them. You aren’t one of them, are you?

        • Oh, I see, that was a bit too close to home, was it? Too bad, might have been a fruitful conversation if not for the insult.

    • He didn’t say the fact was “anti-gun”. He said putting that particular fact at the end of the article evidenced an “anti-gun sentiment”. Sort of like putting the fact that more people are killed with bare hands than with AR15s in an article might be construed as evidencing a “pro-gun” sentiment. Is your mind “nuanced” enough to figure that out?

  4. I can hear the betters and the libtards now: “Who cares? All these are flyover states full of hicks and rubes.

    Ray from Bloombergia

  5. Of course, since the law was written by people who don’t know the front end of a gun from the back end, loop holes were left in, probably unintentionally. You can’t buy anything with Bushmaster’s name on it, but you can get anything that is called a “heavy barrel” gun. You can also now buy stripped lowers, with the unenforceable proviso that you build something in a legal configuration.

    As usual, this law is typical Libtard fare: full of sound and fury, signifying very little.

    • That, and the provision that we can own mags larger than 10 rounds and bring them ourselves into the state. But we can’t buy them here or have them delivered here. It just means we have to drive to VA, WV, PA or DE to go magazine shopping or have Internet orders delivered to an out-of-state address. It does make it annoying when buying guns on the Internet that come with mags larger than 10 rounds.

      • Or at least be able to convincingly lie about the origin of the magazine. Unless this is one of those also unconstitutional laws that considers one guilty until you can prove your self innocent at great cost to your self and family assuming any such proof could even exist.

    • “people who don’t know the front end of a gun from the back end”

      We should take them all to the range…

    • Got a source for the stripped lower bit?
      My lgs won’t sell’m. Not a big deal, but it might let me consider that .458 socom project I was looking at.

  6. Quite a long list. My 40 year old son is all in with “sensible” gun control in his state of Maryland. Interesting he posted a Facebook post about violence in Ferguson Missouri. He lives 10 miles from Baltimore. I sent a message he needs to arm up as the PO-leece have no duty to protect him. Veteran, military police, carried a gun in Iraq and is a “spy” or analyst for DOD. Speaks Arabic too. Not everyone hates Maryland…

    • As a current Marylander…This state sucks!
      Besides the stupid unconstitutional gun laws, and the rain tax.
      Most people in Maryland are rude, self centered, Money worshiping hypocrites.

      People are so afraid to govern themselves, Rights = Responsibility

      • Dude, you need to go to a “free” part of the state – the part that has mountains where the sun sets slightly later than in Baltimore or Annapolis. I wish I lived there.

        • To do so is pointless when the state is controlled by those two cities and the D.C. suburbs. You are just another tax cow paying for them getting little to nothing in return while still suffering under the same shitty laws including gun control laws.

          Maryland is a lost cause and I grew up in Montgomery County. Your only hope is to leave.

      • As a former Marylander it was one of my biggest motivations to why I moved.

        Yea I miss my old friends but I am making new friends here instead.

  8. In other news, longest article title in TTAG history?

    Glad to see that quite a few states are banding together (somewhat I suppose) to at least point the finger at MD.

  9. Elections have consequences. This brief comes from the West Virginia AG, who is the first Republican to hold the office in about 80 years. Electing a good state AG, who hires good, pro-gun and pro-constitution lawyers to work for him matters. And of course the same can be said for the Attorneys General in other states who have signed on to this brief.

  10. I’m disappointed that my state didn’t file a similar brief as well (even though it damn well should have been all 49 other states).

  12. Great, but I honestly can’t figure out why the other state gov’ts are interested in a Maryland state law.

    • The other states are interested because there is a federal constitutional issue at stake, one that will be settled (one hopes) by SCOTUS. In such cases the other states have good reason not to leave one state or plaintiff hanging in the wind.

    • OK, as a legal matter I can see the “interest”–but as a practical, political matter–why are they, as state governments, being so pro-active? Not that I mind, of course, just can’t see why it is in their respective political interest to try to overturn a state statute that has no effect on their own constituents. But like I said, if it helps, it’s a good thing.

      • So, at least in Arizona, if the voters were to pass a ballot initiative banning black rifles and/or standard-cap mags, the (very conservative) AZ state legislature would not be able to repeal it. The only way it could be repealed would be another referendum.

        That’s probably not why the Arizona AG signed on to this brief, but it makes me feel better anyway.

        Also, it would really put the last nail in the coffin of a national black rifle ban.

    • Let me explain–or better yet, go find the trial court opinion, which I know is posted on the web, probably at The Firing Line. In essence, the judge felt that the massive number of ARs in circulation in the US (or in Maryland for that matter), and therefore the rifle’s popularity, was irrelevant to the question she was asked to decide, which was whether it was commonly used FOR SELF DEFENSE. Since plaintiffs could not show that it was in common use for THIS PARTICULAR PURPOSE, it could be banned as a dangerous and unusual weapon within the meaning of Miller. She was undoubtedly focusing (way too narrowly) on the language in Heller that the handgun is the firearm most commonly used for self defense and thus presumptively within the scope of the Second amendment.

  13. i don’t think they closed with anti-gun sentiment, they simply explained why so many see the AR-15 as a banable gun. They also comment that it’s one of the most popular guns in the country.

    MLive may not be perfect but they’ve done a few even-handed articles about Michigan’s CPL laws and gun crime in general. Their facts match up with ours and there weren’t any emotional cries for gun control. Just very factual articles, which impressed me.

  14. @Excedrine
    >— The whole point is that it doesn’t even matter whichever model of whatever was used to do whichever thing wherever.
    But it does. The article points out right here:”…The brief states Maryland’s Firearm Safety Act of 2013 infringes on each state’s citizens’ Second Amendment rights ‘by imposing a ban on the possession of commonly used weapons that extends to the home…’”

    This has to do with commonly used weapons and the accessibility to them, and the AR15 being one of, if not the most common arms in the US at this time.

    >The type of tool is and always has been completely irrelevant to the crime. The only ones even trying to make it a sticking point to push an agenda are simply spinning it as a reason to take them away from law-abiding citizens.
    Im not disagree with that at all, despite no one being able to read properly.

    An AR15 *WAS* used in those shooting. That just isnt up for debate. If the article said something like “Blah blah blah the Ar15 was used in several mass shooting, and( pay attention here) thats why it needs to be banned,” Then yes, that would be anti gun, and I would call them out. I can find dozens articles that could point out the a offender was black/white/asian/what have you, and that wouldnt mean that the article is racist; its just pointing out a demonstrable fact. Pointing out a demonstrable fact that a weapon was isnt in a crime isnt spin or lying.

    >That is the lie. That is the spin. That is the half-truth.
    Oh, then I guess the AR15s used at the scenes must not have existed or something, what with them being lies. Or may they were just -15s, what with being half-truths.

    >The only ones afraid of facts ARE the anti-gunners,
    Then why is it lying to say that a model of a gun was used in a crime? Did the crime not happen? Were the weapons not used?

    >The only cretins here are those that agree with them. You aren’t one of them, are you?
    I dont agree with them at all, but to say theyre lying by saying that AR15s were used is just wrong. Nice try with the “us vs them, no middle ground” bit too.

  15. CORRECTION…The dickhead in Newtown, CT did NOT use an AR-15. He left the AR in the trunk of his car and used a shotgun to carryout his psychotic episode. Just another perfect example of the liberal media’s lies to push their bullshit anti gun agenda.

    • You have it backwards. he left the shotty in the trunk–and there is film of the police removing it after the fact.

      • “He left the AR in the car” is a commonly repeated “false flag” conspiracy theory. Some people believe it completely. Some people also believe that angry Thetans from Xenu inhabit our bodies. Unlikely to convince them otherwise.

    • I love this from the Pink Pistols:

      “Amici wish to dispel the misleading and insulting caricature that supporters of Second Amendment rights are either tobacco-chewing, gap-toothed, camouflage-wearing rednecks or militia posers who are morbidly fascinated with firepower”

      I’ve gone to Pink Pistols shoots, and other than the fact that most like to end the day by annihilating something with Tannerite, it’s an amazingly broad group. It’s kinda awesome to watch a dainty dyke in leather working at teaching an engineer more accustomed to that other ballistic sport, golf, the basics of safety and stance.

  19. Maryland’s laws just don’t make sense. AR15s are banned, but you can buy a heavy barreled version cash and carry. But then again, they were written by people that don’t understand what they’re legislating.

    • it makes marginally more sense (in regards to how the law was constructed) if you look at the half-assed gradual process that got us to the current ban.

  20. The antis are already pretty much over “assault weapon” bans. What’s next? Are we ready? What are we going to go after while they’re figuring out their next move?

      • “common-sense” background checks are the cry now, but don’t think for a moment they won’t be pushing for incremental mag limits and ammo purchasing regs as this goes on. I’m glad that the uselessness of AWBs has been unveiled, it seems, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it came around again in a few years if a moron decides to get famous.

        • Having background checks available is common sense — it’s just that they want the government in charge, which isn’t sense of any kind.

  22. And what if they lose? Just sets more precedent for the banning of “assault weapons” and so forth. What makes anyone think the Court would overturn assault weapons bans? They will probably pull a Roberts and find a weasel way to uphold it while striking some parts of it down.

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