Things are heating up in Maryland over the state’s refusal to allow nonresidents to practice their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
On July 3, the Second Amendment Foundation filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court of Maryland supporting the petition for certiorari in Darius Duvall v. State of Maryland, challenging the state’s refusal to recognize valid, out-of-state carry permits.
According to an SAF news release announcing the court action, the brief urges the court to grant review and hold that Maryland’s refusal to recognize these permits violates the Second Amendment. American historical tradition overwhelmingly protected travelers from other states, who were routinely exempted from state and local restrictions on the concealed carry of firearms.
SAF said this “traveler’s exception” appears in Colonial-era laws, early 19th-century statutes from states like Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas and Alabama, and continued after the Civil War in states including Nevada and California. More than 80 such historical examples have been compiled.
“History is clear: Travelers from other states were given greater leeway to carry arms than residents,” Kostas Moros, SAF’s director of legal research and education, said in the news release. “Maryland’s modern scheme, which forces law-abiding adults who already hold permits from their home jurisdictions to jump through redundant and costly hoops or risk arrest, has no analogue in our nation’s historical tradition. The Supreme Court’s decisions in Bruen, Wolford and Hemani require states to respect that tradition. The Court should grant the petition and put Maryland on the right side of the Second Amendment.”
The brief notes that petitioner and Marine veteran Darius Duvall was arrested in Maryland while traveling and carrying with a valid Washington, D.C., permit. It contrasts Maryland’s total lack of any traveler exception with the historical pattern and emphasizes that the burden Maryland imposes is not comparable to any historical regulation.
“Maryland cannot carry that burden here because the ‘historical understanding’ of the right demonstrates that travelers from other states had a right to be armed while traveling and thus got more leeway than residents when it came to carry,” the brief states. “While Bruen suggests that a State may require their own residents to obtain ‘shall-issue’ carry permits so as to ensure that they are law-abiding, nothing in that holding permits a State to ignore historical traditions associated with non-resident travelers, especially for non-residents who have carry permits from their home states.”
The brief also states: “History is clear, and it tells us that Maryland must—at minimum— recognize carry permits issued by other states to law-abiding adults in line with the historical traveler’s exception laws. The traveler’s exception laws are directly on point, well-represented in our history and uncontroversial. They definitively decide this case in petitioner’s favor.”
Alan M. Gottlieb, SAF founder and executive vice president, said Second Amendment rights don’t end at state borders, and SAF is doing all it can in the courts to push toward interstate carry rights.
“We forced California to begin issuing nonresident permits, and we will continue the fight until true permit reciprocity is the law of the land,” Gottlieb concluded. “Americans should not have to go unarmed when they cross an imaginary line just because lawmakers in certain states wish to see the Second Amendment relegated to a second-class right.”
Makes as much sense as preventing out of state motor vehicles from crossing into maryland. For centuries Gun Control sickos have never ceased concocting insane ways to vent their hate for the God Given underdog’s right to keep and bear arms.
Time for some Sunday Morning Kris…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=gPGuUHNT7U4&is=TEIiMWXsGB2Zo9Vv
The Privalage to bear arms..
I still want to see NRA get involved in this, especially the ILA arm. This was a legislative uckfay, upyay by Maryland. If the ILA doesn’t think this is important, then why do we even have the ILA? Somebody (or a bunch of somebodys) at the NRA/ILA are sitting on their ass during this opportunity to make a real difference. Pick up the phone and give the SAF a call. I’m sure they’d love to collaborate with you.
So burn additional money for performative theatrics when the smaller guys have the lighter lifting covered? Nah they have bigger stuff to attend to in areas around Colorado, California, Virginia, and potentially up my way in about a year. Now if this one goes weird yeah there will be a mess of backstop issues.
Every 2A organization should be able to trust every other 2A organization. That can’t happen if everybody fights this fight on an individual basis.
Maybe the NRA did have a “…you good bro?” conversation with SAF. If so, that would be a good thing. I’m just saying we all need to back each other up and I’d like to see more of that in the public sphere.
When we DON’T do that, the opposition sees that as division and infighting, and they automatically take up the fight.
It reminds me how the democrats always circle the wagons and defend each other. Biden’s broken brain, Fauci’s outright evil, Minnesota’s Somali theft and abuse; democrats all jump in and defend the thing, no matter how bad it is.
More currently, no matter how cray cray these DSA candidates get, you will NEVER see the two old women of the Congress go against them. And yes, I’m talking about Nancy Pelosi and that low-t putz schmuck Chuck Schumer who doesn’t even know how to grill a hamburger.
They’re both evil, but they’ve got the democrats’ back no matter what. We need to have more of that same chutzpah coming out of our 2A organizations. Just without the theft, fraud, and abuse.
Considering how much the NRA has backstopped the funding of the smaller groups I find the concern to be negligible. They are trusting the smaller groups to handle the smaller issues and not burn through billable hours and budget as both are painfully finite for every group. Can only spread money so thin and all especially with how many issues we have in every state.