Posted on 03/08/2016 8:50:43 AM PST by Oldpuppymax
In 2013, the State of Maryland passed into law the Firearms Safety Act (FSA), “…banning its residents from owning any of the large majority of semi-automatic rifles owned by American citizens.” When the Act was challenged in federal court (Kolbe vs Hogan), the state was immediately granted summary judgement, the court ruling that the Act was NOT “…an unconstitutional infringement of the Second Amendment.”
In February, however, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the Kolbe vs Hogan decision back to the lower court which had deemed the law constitutional, telling that court that it had used the wrong standard of scrutiny when making its ruling. The 4th Circuit instructed that court to apply the “strict standard” of scrutiny upon re-hearing the case.
What does this 4th Circuit ruling mean for gun law and gun owners?
The American court system has the authority to find both legislation and executive acts unconstitutional. The most rigorous application of this power of judicial review involves the “strict scrutiny” standard.
“The Supreme Court has identified the right to vote, the right to travel, and the right to privacy as fundamental rights worthy of protection by strict scrutiny. In addition, laws and policies that discriminate on the basis of race are categorized as suspect classifications that are presumptively impermissible and subject to strict scrutiny.”
This means that “…laws that arguably infringe on enumerated Constitutional rights are not subject to mere intermediate scrutiny, but rather they are subject to strict scrutiny.”
When a piece of legislation—Maryland’s Firearms Safety Act, for example—is the subject of strict scrutiny by the court, it means that, in order to be ruled constitutional, in order to be found “legal,” “the government must show that its policy (as expressed in the legislation) is necessary to achieve a compelling state interest. If this...
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
Great, wonderful, but really, We the People and the Sovereign States of America do not need an appeals court to tell us that our rights of Life, Liberty, and Pursuits are constitutionally protected and cannot be alienated from us by man or his government.
I don’t need their opinion or their recognition.
What they say about my rights is not relevant.
Except that the 3 judges on the 4th Circuit who concluded “strict scrutiny obviously applies to enumerated rights” had their ruling vacated and is now subject to “en banc” review where the entire 4th Circuit (11 judges?) have their say and may decide (or be persuaded) otherwise.
It IS relevant insofar as legislators (and their enforcers) can make it d@mn near impossible for you to obtain tools to exercise those rights, and to publicly exercise those rights without summary incarceration.
Unless you can manufacture your own semi-auto, and are willing to lethally fight police over owning/carrying/using it, “what they say about my rights” IS relevant.
I already have those tools, and I’m not going to say what I am willing to do.
They’re fighting a long-term battle of attrition.
Yes, you have ‘em. Can you repair them? feed them? make shells & projectiles & powder & primers from raw materials?
But it certainly would be nice if we could count on the courts to have our backs.
The courts could stand with, or prevent men in tactical gear entering your house in the middle of the night to enforce laws counter to your constitutionally protected rights.
No, I can’t, but I have a friend who can.
But I also have enough supplies to thoroughly outlast my ability to stay alive, I’d estimate.
Federal courts are part of the federal government and you can’t trust the federal government for much of anything including actually obeying and staying within their Constitutional limits.
It’s up to the states and the people to ensure that by
1) regularly ousting corrupt career politicians and those who have forgotten their oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and
2) state nullification of unconstitutional federal acts and court decisions which by definition are acts of tyranny.
Not arguing with you. But it would certainly be nice of the SCOTUS was on the right side of the issue.
Understood, but we’ve waited and wished too long. We need to implement some backup plans and remedial measures like some that I mentioned.
Who was the judge that ruled for the summary judgement?
Same crap they pulled with the Peruta case in the 9th cicuit, which is 3 months shy of a year after oral arguments presented in June 2015.
These en banc ruling are much more troublesome because the losing party in Kolbe or Peruta has an evenly divided Supreme Court now after Justice Scalia’s death. If the rulings go 4-4 in the SC the 4th and 9th en banc decisions would stand
Yes, that is what I thought. The article is a bit out of date.
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