In the matter of Bianchi v Frosh, a Maryland gun control case in which the State has
designated specified firearms as assault weapons and prohibited them from being transported into the state or from being possessed, sold, transferred, or purchased in the state[]
Mountain States Legal Foundation has filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to take up the case. The article itself is worth the read, but what drew my eye is this position of the Fourth Circuit in its appellate ruling in Kolbe v Hogan, Jr. referenced in passing by JtN.
Are the banned assault weapons and large-capacity magazines “like” “M-16 rifles,” i.e., “weapons that are most useful in military service,” and thus outside the ambit of the Second Amendment? The answer to that dispositive and relatively easy inquiry is plainly in the affirmative.
This test manufactured by the Fourth Circuit deliberately ignores our history and the actual text of our Second Amendment.
A significant fraction of the artillery—cannons—our Continental Army used in our Revolutionary War were privately owned, as were the powder and shot privately manufactured and provided. A significant fraction of our combat ships—privateering ships—in our nation’s Revolutionary War were privately owned, as were the powder and shot privately manufactured and provided.
The Fourth Circuit’s test also deliberately ignores another bit of our history: our Second Amendment was written as defense against an overreaching, abusive government like the one we fought that war to be free of. And our Declaration of Independence outlines the duty of all Americans: [W]hen a long train of abuses and usurpations…it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government…. which requires suitable weaponry.
The Fourth Circuit’s test also deliberately ignores the text of our Second Amendment: the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. There’s not a jot or a tittle in there of “except if a government official, including a judge, thinks otherwise.” Nor is there a single minim about government being authorized to specify the purpose for which an American citizen might choose to arm himself and to bear those arms.
The Fourth Circuit’s opinion can be read here.