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A decision by U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg has struck down Maryland's requirement that a potential gun owner must provide a “good and substantial reason” to legally own a handgun as unconstitutional.
He ruled that Maryland used the law to arbitrarily restrict and hinder gun ownership.
“A citizen may not be required to offer a ‘good and substantial reason’ why he should be permitted to exercise his rights,” Legg wrote. “The right’s existence is all the reason he needs.”
The state went further to restrict gun ownership by requiring imminent danger to even own the hand gun in the case of Plaintiff Raymond Woollard who had been the victim of a home invasion years before and was seeking renewal.
“People have the right to carry a gun for self-defense and don‘t have to prove that there’s a special reason for them to seek the permit,” said Woollard’s attorney Alan Gura, who Fox reports has challenged handgun bans in the District of Columbia and Chicago as an attorney with the Second Amendment Foundation. “We’re not against the idea of a permit process, but the licensing system has to acknowledge that there’s a right to bear arms.” Read the full article.
