SAF, FPC File Brief in Maryland ‘Assault Weapons’ Case Remanded by SCOTUS

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), and others filed a brief Monday in their remanded challenge against Maryland’s “assault weapons” ban.

On July 1, Breitbart News reported that the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) vacated and remanded a number of cases centered on an “assault weapons” ban in Maryland, a “high capacity” magazine ban in California, and carry restrictions in Hawaii.

Among the remanded cases was Bianchi v. Frosh, which challenged Maryland’s “assault weapons” ban.

On Monday, SAF; FPC; Field Traders, LLC; and three private citizens, Dominic Bianchi (after whom the case is named); David Snope; and Micah Schaefer, filed a brief in Frosh.

The brief points to the SCOTUS ruling in NYSRPA v. Bruen, wherein the court ruled that “intermediate scrutiny” is not sufficient in cases centered on the Second Amendment.

The brief states:

Bruen unequivocally reaffirms that when a law is challenged on Second Amendment grounds, the courts’ analysis of the challenged restriction must be rooted in the text of the Amendment and the history showing which types of firearms regulation were accepted at the Founding, as consistent with the right to keep and bear arms. Indeed, the Court clarified in Bruen that the only way that a law burdening conduct falling within the Second Amendment’s scope can be upheld is if the government can demonstrate a “historical tradition” of regulations, rooted in the Founding Era, that burdened the right in a similar way and for similar reasons.

In the wake of Bruen, the Washington Times suggested gun control of all types would begin to face challenges and, in some cases, that such challenges had already begun.

The Times paraphrases Justice Clarence Thomas’s emphasis on the importance of rulings like Bruen, McDonald v. Chicago (2010), and District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), saying, “The test courts must apply is whether a firearms restriction would have seemed reasonable to the founding generation that crafted and ratified the Second Amendment. If not, the law must give way to the Constitution.”

The case is Bianchi v. Frosh, No. 21-1255, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.