(Image Credit: Wikimedia)
Sorry, gun lovers. The Second?Amendment doesn’t include protection of AR-15s, AK-47s, and other assault weapons, a U.S. District court recently ruled.
Stephen Kolbe and other plaintiffs attempted to contest Maryland’s Firearm Safety Act of 2013, which outlawed the sale of particular assault weapons, specifying 45 different models. The Act was introduced in Maryland legislature in Jan. 2013 shortly after the infamous Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut. After extended debate and amendment proposals, the bill finally passed in April of that same year, and was signed into law by Gov. Martin O?Malley shortly after on May 16.
In Kolbe et al vs O?Mally et al, filed in Sept. 2013, the complainants argued that the legislation violated their constitutional rights, even though the Act excluded all weapons that were rightfully owned prior to its becoming law.
On Aug. 12, however, Judge Catherine Blake ruled that the guns specified in the Act ?fall outside Second Amendment protection as dangerous and unusual.?
?(T)he court seriously doubts that the banned assault long guns are commonly possessed for lawful purposes, particularly self-defense in the home, which is at the core of the Second Amendment right(.)?
Kolbe et al also claimed that the specific weapons were already common and sold popularly, too, including sales statistics in their argument. That too was dismantled by Blake, however, even using the statistics they offered in counterargument.
?Even accepting that there are 8.2 million assault weapons in the civilian gun stock, as the plaintiffs claim, assault weapons represent no more than three percent of the current civilian gun stock, and ownership of those weapons is highly concentrated in less than one percent of the population.?
Moreover, Blake stated that despite the complainants? argument, assault weapons weren’t used for defense but only illegal offense, instead. As a result, she said in her decision:
?If (the weapons) are not (in common uses for lawful purposes) ? or if they are dangerous and unusual ? they fall outside the Amendment’s protections, and Maryland’s law banning the weapons is valid without further analysis.?
To cement her judgment, Blake also cited a previous U.S. Supreme Court ruling (District of Columbia v. Heller):
?With respect to the types of weapons protected, the Court found that the Second Amendment does not protect ?a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.??
Blake’s conclusion reads:
?In summary, the Firearm Safety Act of 2013, which represents the considered?judgment of this State’s legislature and its governor, seeks to address a serious risk of harm to law enforcement officers and the public from the?greater power to injure and kill presented by assault weapons and large capacity magazines.?The Act substantially serves?the government’s interest?in?protecting public safety, and it does so without significantly burdening what the Supreme Court has now explained is the core Second Amendment right of ?law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of?hearth and home.??Accordingly, the law is constitutional?and will be upheld.?
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