Democrats Seek to Defy the Supreme Court
Senate Bill 1 is a controversial new bill that would, effectively, ban the carry of concealed weapons in public places. It does not pass constitutional muster.
The Maryland State Senate’s most prominent piece of legislation this year is yet another attempt to stop law-abiding gun owners from exercising their Constitutional Rights.
Senate Bill 1 is a controversial new bill that would, effectively, ban the carry of concealed weapons in public places.
There are two key components of the law. The first part would ban a person from wearing, carrying, or transporting a firearm on the property of another without the expressed permission of the property owner.
A PERSON MAY NOT KNOWINGLY WEAR, CARRY, OR TRANSPORT A FIREARM ONTO THE REAL PROPERTY OF ANOTHER UNLESS THE OTHER HAS GIVEN EXPRESS PERMISSION, EITHER TO THE PERSON OR TO THE PUBLIC GENERALLY, TO WEAR, CARRY, OR TRANSPORT A FIREARM ON THE REAL PROPERTY.
That part is likely constitutional and, frankly, respects the property rights of property owners. I don’t think you will see a lot of pushback on that.
The second part, however, is extremely problematic:
A PERSON MAY NOT KNOWINGLY WEAR, CARRY, OR TRANSPORT A FIREARM WITHIN 100 FEET OF A PLACE OF PUBLIC ACCOMMODATION.
The definition of “public accommodation” follows the regular state laws on the matter and the state’s definition of public accommodation is…..lengthy.
Both sections are proposed to be classified as misdemeanors with the possibility of up to one year in prison on conviction.
The bill, of course, is a crock. No person who intends to use a firearm to harm people in a place of public accommodation is going to be stopped from doing so by the passage of this silly law. No, this law is aimed squarely at law-abiding gun owners whose constitutional right to carry legally in Maryland was restored after the Supreme Court’s decision in NYSRPA v. Bruen.
Before you even get to the constitutionality of the proposed law, the law is absurd on principle. For example, a gun range is classified as a “public accommodation” under the law because it is “a retail establishment” that “offers goods, services, entertainment” and recreation for people who purchase and use firearms. It would be illegal were the law to pass to transport a gun from a gun store to your car because you would be transporting and carrying a gun within 100 feet of a place of public accommodation.
Democrats, I’m sure, think the absurdity of the bill is a bug, not a feature.
Regardless of the absurdity of that portion of the law, the likelihood is that SB1 is unconstitutional. NYSRPA v. Bruen found that:
The Second Amendment guaranteed to “all Americans” the right to bear commonly used arms in public subject to certain reasonable, well-defined restrictions. Heller, 554 U. S., at 581. Those restrictions, for example, limited the intent for which one could carry arms, the manner by which one carried arms, or the exceptional circumstances under which one could not carry arms, such as before justices of the peace and other government officials. Apart from a few late-19thcentury outlier jurisdictions, American governments simply have not broadly prohibited the public carry of commonly used firearms for personal defense.
SB1 would do just what the Supreme Court says is unconstitutional, to wit, prohibit the public carry of commonly used firearms for personal defense. SB1 would also, by definition, limit the private carry, transport, and ownership of legal firearms for those Maryland individuals who lived in a building in which a place of public accommodation was located i.e. in an apartment with a restaurant on the first floor. And there are major constitutional implications for that as well.
Senators Jeff Waldstreicher and Susan Lee (who is decamping to the Moore Administration) should be ashamed of themselves for supporting such a ridiculous proposal that is not only bad in its merits but unconstitutional in its construction. If they are seeking to make Maryland safer and stop gun crime across the site, taking out their frustrations on the law-abiding Marylanders who carry a weapon with them safely ain’t it.