Full 4th Circuit will hear challenge to Maryland’s assault weapons ban

The entire 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will take up a challenge to Maryland’s ban on assault-style weapons, marking the second major gun case that the appeals court has agreed to rehear recently.

The 4th Circuit will hear the case en banc, meaning that oral arguments will take place before all of the court’s 14 active judges at their March session.

The rehearing order is an unusual step because the three-judge panel that originally heard the case had not issued a ruling yet. The panel heard arguments in December 2022 and appeared poised to strike down the ban on semiautomatic assault-style weapons under the U.S. Supreme Court’s new framework for Second Amendment cases.

Gun rights groups told the panel that the 2013 Firearm Safety Act — which banned 45 weapons, including the AR-15 — violates the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Maryland enacted the ban after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, which led to the deaths of 20 children and six adults.

The ban’s opponents lost an earlier challenge in the 4th Circuit, which upheld the ban and found that it promoted Maryland’s goal of protecting public safety. While an appeal in the Maryland case was pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices issued their decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, dramatically shifting the landscape for Second Amendment decisions.

With Bruen, the Supreme Court ruled that that restrictions on gun possession must align not only with a state’s interest but with the history of firearms restrictions as they existed when the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791 or when the 14th Amendment extended the right to the states in 1868.

The Supreme Court then sent the challenge to Maryland’s ban back to the 4th Circuit with instructions to review the case in light of the Bruen decision.

In a statement, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown commended the 4th Circuit’s decision to rehear the case en banc.

“Mass shootings and assault weapons go hand-in-hand,” Brown said. “Too many lives have been taken because of these weapons of war that do not belong on our streets or in our communities. I will continue to defend common-sense gun safety laws to protect all Marylanders and to stand up for the innocent lives we have lost at the hands of unnecessary and preventable tragedies that continue to plague this country.”

The gun rights advocates challenging Maryland’s ban are the Sacramento, California-based Firearms Policy Coalition; three Maryland gun owners; the Field Traders gun store in Anne Arundel County; and two Bellevue, Washington-based groups, the Second Amendment Foundation and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Lawyers for the advocates did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The 4th Circuit last week agreed to rehear a case involving Maryland’s handgun licensing requirement. A three-judge panel ruled in November that the rule violates the Second Amendment by blocking law-abiding adults from immediately owning handguns. Obtaining a handgun qualification license generally takes 30 days.