Montgomery County is being sued in County Circuit Court over its recently-passed ghost gun law. Bill 4-21, passed by the Montgomery County Council on April 6, restricts the possession, use, sale, and transfer of ghost guns, undetectable guns, and certain other firearms within 100 yards of places of public assembly; restricts the possession, use, sale, and transfer of ghost guns, undetectable guns, and certain other firearms with respect to minors; and requires the Montgomery County Police Department to submit an annual report to the County Executive and the County Council regarding the availability and use of ghost guns and undetectable guns in the county. The new law is scheduled to go into effect July 16. But a new lawsuit says the law violates Article XI–E, § 3 of the Maryland Constitution, as well as other statutes on the books.
Maryland Shall Issue, Inc., a leading 2nd Amendment rights organization in the state, gun retailers, and several Montgomery County residents are plaintiffs in the suit. They seek to overturn the law, and to be compensated for damages and legal fees.
The new law's provision on software designs for ghost guns violates the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the suit alleges. A recent 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision said the 1st Amendment protects such computer code. New restrictions on possession and business transactions, as well as the overall "vague language" of the law, violate the Maryland Takings Clause (Article III § 40) and the Due Process Clause (Article 24) of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, the suit further alleges.
Engage Armament, a gun retailer in Rockville, is one of the plaintiffs in the case. Its owner says the new County law prevents some transactions the store has been able to complete under existing federal and state laws, such as the sale of legal firearm components for assembly, and of computer code for such assembly. The store also falls within 100 yards of a place of public assembly as defined by the County Council, and has until now been able to legally make a firearm sale in the presence of a minor who is accompanied by a parent.
The lawsuit being filed also alleges the new ghost gun law violates the Maryland Express Powers Act, noting that Montgomery County cannot pass laws in conflict with existing state law. Montgomery County is attempting to redefine public gathering places as any ordinary private property that has current or future potential as a public gathering space, the suit alleges. Maryland law regarding the transfer of firearms preempts new restrictions being passed by local governments, it further notes. The suit is Maryland Shall Issue, Inc., et al vs. Montgomery County, Maryland.
14 comments:
Montgomery County will have a panic attack if Conceal Carry is made "Shall Issue" for Maryland (changed from "May Issue") as a result of the pending Supreme Court Case coming out of New York: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/04/26/supreme-court-takes-gun-case-aimed-regulations-outside-home/7062821002/
@ 6:04 AM , Yes.. DC was having "The sky is falling" when it's circuit ruled they had to go shall issue. That was about four years ago, crickets.. One can only hope the carry issue is resolved nationwide.
Oh please lord, let Montgomery County lose this lawsuit.
Shall issue cannot be far away. I am very optimistic. The dominoes are falling.
Doesn't the local government have better things to do, like maybe banning the leafblowers that whine constantly, and making the ambulance service free again.
You know, just a few little things for the people who pay the taxes.
Don’t tread on me
Imagine thinking the government shouldn't regulate untraceable and undetectable firearms but should regulate leaf blowers.
@9:05 pm: imagine thinking that a government that has abandoned its role of protecting citizens against theft and violent crime should be able to deprive law abiding citizens of their right to protect themselves.
@ 9:05 PM County Council has you drinking the koolaid. Most of what's in the law is ALREADY illegal. Undetectable firearms are not regulated, THEY ARE already ILLEGAL in every state! No minor can take transfer of a firearm as well. They write a Bill where the majority of their platitudes already exist, but then sprinkle in a bit extra, that in no way should pass muster in court.
The absurd belief that "tracing" any found or seized firearm will solve a crime refuses to die. Not one murder in Maryland (since 1634) has been "solved" by a successful gun tracing. There's also no such thing as an undetectable firearm- never has been. Even in science fiction there has never been a successful "undetectable" gun.
Montgomery County wrote a law to ban things (ghost guns) that don't exist. Might as well prohibit Ghosts from residing in the County.
Note that for nearly 90 years, the FBI has kept a central record in National Crime Information Center (NCIC) of all reported stolen firearms. Checking the serial number of any firearm against FBI records will identify the last owner of a stolen gun, and enable the police to return firearms to the previous owner.
@9:05 PM - Imagine that! They must have a bad case of "CRT", Critical Righteous Thinking!
Gun control does not work
It is used in communist takeovers
Both Castro and Hitler banned guns
Criminals from DC and MS13 will always be able to get guns
So after they defund the police and the armed invaders ( happened to mom and dad in a “safe “ area in Bethesda) break into your house and they have guns and you do not
Good luck surviving
Imagine being so uneducated you think Hitler banned guns.
@4:09 PM: If you search on 'Hitler gun control,' you will find a blog post on robertwimer.com, where he concludes that the combination of Nuremberg Laws did keep the sale and ownership of guns by Jews illegal under the Nazi regime, and that Jews would have had their guns taken away, despite the absence of a general gun ban under Hitler. So it is Anonymous @4:09 who is uneducated, or alternatively, he/she is lying by omission. As a Jew myself, I condemn you, whoever you are.
1931, Jews will be denied food for refusing to surrender their guns within 24-hours. 1938, Hitler signed the new Gun Control Act and evolved into Kristallnact whereby all Jews were disarmed.
This is why congress reaffirmed the 2nd Amendment in 1941. Liberals these days advocate strict guns laws thinking that their good intentions will be rewarded with less crime & violence but in the real world results matter.
Anonymous at 7:26 AM, from Anonymous at 6:48 AM and 3:51 AM: As the saying goes, great minds think alike, and although we appear to be on the same side, I did want to express my disagreement with your statement that liberals who advocate gun control are motivated by good intentions. That may be true of a minority of naive liberals, but I believe that most liberal gun control advocates are in fact fascists who seek to disarm law-abiding citizens precisely in order to impose their vision of a liberal fascist utopia on those who do not share their views. They are the type of people, power-hungry and evil, who are not content to live their own lives, and let others alone to live theirs. And if they are knowledgeable about historical examples like Nazi Germany, they don't care, because they are convinced that they, or like-minded politicians whom they support, will be in charge.
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