{"id":98086,"date":"2023-11-28T00:44:49","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T06:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=98086"},"modified":"2023-11-28T00:44:49","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T06:44:49","slug":"98086","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=98086","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Police in This Blue State Will Continue Enforcing \u2018Draconian\u2019 Handgun Law Ruled Unconstitutional by Court<\/a><\/p>\n

Maryland State Police will continue enforcing the state\u2019s handgun law for now, despite a federal appeals court ruling that the licensing requirement is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time, the HQL law remains in effect and there are no immediate changes in the process to purchase a firearm in Maryland,\u201d the department wrote in an agency-wide advisory after last week\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

Maryland’s Handgun Qualification License (HQL) requires applicants to submit fingerprints for a background check, take a four-hour firearm safety course with a live fire component, and wait up to 30 days for approval before purchasing a handgun, which then requires another application and seven-day waiting period.<\/p>\n

Last Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the law is overly “burdensome” and cannot stand under the 2022 landmark Supreme Court decision that a firearm regulation is unconstitutional unless the government can prove it is consistent with the nation’s historical tradition.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“The challenged law restricts the ability of law-abiding adult citizens to possess handguns, and the state has not presented a historical analogue that justifies its restriction; indeed, it has seemingly admitted that it couldn\u2019t find one,” Judge Julius Richardson, a Trump appointee, wrote in the court’s majority opinion.<\/p>\n

But the Maryland State Police’s licensing division said it will continue enforcing the law until the federal court issues a mandate.<\/p>\n

Protesters demand action on gun control outside of U.S. Capitol
\nGun control advocacy groups rally with Democratic members of Congress outside the U.S. Capitol on May 26, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Maryland officials have 14 days to file for a rehearing before the full appeals court. If the state does not file within that window, the court will issue a mandate seven days later, which means the final court ruling would be Dec. 11, Fox45 News reported.<\/p>\n

Officials have not yet confirmed whether they plan to file for a rehearing or, alternatively, seek a review before the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement that he would “continue to fight for this law” and that his administration was evaluating its options.<\/p>\n

Similarly, a spokesperson for Attorney General Anthony Brown told Fox45 News that they were “weighing options for next steps.”<\/p>\n

The NRA previously described Maryland’s HQL as a “draconian process” and praised the Fourth Circuit ruling as a “significant victory, for the Second Amendment and Americans who value constitutional freedoms.”<\/p>\n

“Striking down Maryland’s oppressive Handgun Qualification License requirement affirms that the burdensome process infringes on the rights of the law-abiding,” the NRA’s lobbying arm executive director Randy Kozuch told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police in This Blue State Will Continue Enforcing \u2018Draconian\u2019 Handgun Law Ruled Unconstitutional by Court Maryland State Police will continue enforcing the state\u2019s handgun law for now, despite a federal appeals court ruling that the licensing requirement is unconstitutional. \u201cAt this time, the HQL law remains in effect and there are no immediate changes in … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,9,50,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts","category-enemies-foreign-domestic","category-goobermint","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98087,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98086\/revisions\/98087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}