A gun-rights group that successfully challenged weapons laws in Chicago and the District of Columbia has moved its campaign to Maryland, filing a federal complaint alleging that state restrictions violate the Second and Fourteenth amendments.
In a seven-page lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, the Second Amendment Foundation, along with Baltimore County resident Raymond Woollard, challenged a Maryland law that grants permits to carry a handgun only to those who show, among other things, that they could be in danger.
The Second Amendment Foundation and Woollard, who was recently denied a permit, contend that the Maryland provision is unconstitutional and goes against citizens' rights to bear arms. They're asking the court to prevent related permit denials and to specifically grant Woollard the right to wear a firearm.
"Imagine a world in which you had to go to the government and show a good and substantial reason to exercise your constitutional rights," said Cary J. Hansel, one of the plaintiff's lawyers. "We are not arguing there shouldn't be background checks, fingerprints, mental examinations or training requirements."
The lawsuit comes amid recent court victories for gun-rights advocates. In June, the Supreme Court ruled in a Chicago case that the Second Amendment provides Americans a fundamental right to bear arms, which cannot be violated by state or local governments. The decision extended the court's landmark 2008 ruling, which struck down the District of Columbia's decades-old ban on handgun possession.
And now, SAF has set its sights on Maryland. But the state saw it coming.
After the 2008 ruling, Maryland Assistant Attorney General Kathryn M. Rowe wrote a 15-page analysis of how the state's gun laws might fare in the new climate. She concluded that the Maryland laws — less strict than those in Washington and Chicago, which effectively banned gun ownership — could withstand legal challenge. The opinion was reaffirmed this month, after the Chicago decision, in a separate letter written in response to a state delegate's question.
But the assessments did not consider the particular provision that upsets SAF and Woollard. Under Maryland law, people can get a permit to carry a gun only if they show it is necessary as a "reasonable precaution against apprehended danger," which Woollard thought he had.
On Christmas Eve in 2002, a man broke into Woollard's home and fought with Woollard and members of his family before police arrived nearly three hours later. The intruder later spent time in prison, but eventually wound up living three miles away from Woollard's Baltimore County home.
The proximity was not enough to grant Woollard the continued right to carry a gun, however. Though he had been granted a carry permit earlier, a renewal was denied in 2009 because the permitting board determined that Woollard did not adequately document "threats occurring beyond his residence, where he can already legally carry a handgun," according to the lawsuit.
"Individuals cannot be required to demonstrate that … they face a greater than average level of danger, as a prerequisite for exercising their Second Amendment rights," the complaint states. Such a requirement also violates the Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection under the law, they contend.
The lawsuit names the Maryland State Police superintendent, Col. Terrence B. Sheridan, and three members of the state handgun permit review board as defendants.
SAF filed a similar lawsuit in New York state earlier this month.
Daniel Vise, senior attorney for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said it is not unreasonable for a state to ask residents why they need to carry loaded weapons in public and predicted that the lawsuit would fail. The Brady Center assists states and cities in defending against challenges to gun laws.
"Maryland is doing the right thing in restricting the carrying of loaded weapons," Vise said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.