SNOPE v MARYLAND 

by Dave Funk | Dec 3, 2024

SNOPE v MARYLAND 

In the case of Snope v Maryland, the Supreme Court is petitioned to take a case to rein in the lower courts. Let me explain why. At the end of this blog, I’ll send you over to Mark A. Smith at the Four Boxes Diner to watch his short video about how powerful the Snope case is. 

Snope, in his Petition, emphasizes the need for the Court’s intervention:

“But intervention is particularly important because, in the ongoing debate below, the side that to date has always prevailed is also the side that is flouting this Court’s clear teaching in Heller. This error results in an ongoing infringement of the fundamental right to keep and bear arms in the states that have made the most popular rifle in America illegal.”

The lower appellate courts in the Blue States have consistently ruled that they can ban AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles. Those appellate courts know that since the Red States don’t infringe on their citizens’ rights to own commonly used arms, there will not be a split in Federal Circuit Court rulings that would force SCOTUS to take the case. The anti-gun dangerous quack strategy is to delay any ruling in the hope for a future more-liberal majority SCOUTS that will wipe out our God-given right to self-defense and the tools we need to exercise that right.

There are three main points made by David Snope in his brief to grant Certiorari for his claim against the State of Maryland. They are as follows:

1. “There is a long-running and intractable dispute in the lower courts over whether the Second Amendment allows the government to ban arms that are in common use by law-abiding citizens.

2. Heller clearly teaches that arms in common use by law-abiding citizens cannot be banned.

3. This case is an ideal vehicle to resolve this dispute.”

The “in common use” test is the most important part of this brief:

“Heller itself demands that any ban on a type of arm that is “in common use”
be held unconstitutional.”

As Judge Walker recently explained in dissent in Hanson, although many circuit courts appear to understand Heller to “simply hold that the Second Amendment is an individual right, then add a lot of dicta, and then finally hold that D.C. cannot ban handguns,” in fact, Heller had four ‘increasingly specific holdings” that built on each other and should govern courts in resolving challenges to bans on types of arms. 120 F.4th at 260 (Walker, J., dissenting).

 

Those holdings were, in order:

 

1) There is, in general, an individual right to keep and bear arms;

 

2) Exceptions to that right depend on the history and tradition of gun regulations;

 

3) There is no history and tradition of banning arms in common use for lawful purposes; and

 

4) Handguns cannot be categorically banned precisely because they are in common use for lawful purposes.

 

Id. \Following Heller, the courts of appeals largely accepted and understood the first and the last of these holdings, but it took Bruen for them to finally accept the second. Granting a review of this case is necessary to make them understand the third. Maryland’s brief in opposition, which, like the courts of appeals’, refuses to take “common use” seriously, amply demonstrates that fact.

 

Maryland, like circuits that have consistently gotten this issue wrong, disputes that “common use” was the reason why Heller held handguns were protected and could not be banned. Although Maryland readily admits that Heller said that “dangerous and unusual weapons” could be banned, it also claims that “this Court has not stated the inverse, i.e., that a weapon automatically is protected so long as it is ‘in common use.’ ” BIO 24. This objection is difficult to understand, given that earlier in the same paragraph where this argument appears, Maryland quotes Bruen stating that “the Second Amendment protects only the carrying of weapons that are those ‘in common use at the time.’

 

Id. (quoting Bruen, 597 U.S. at 47). Maryland offers no way around the clear import of this language. And the quote Maryland includes in its opposition is not alone. There is no shortage of statements in both Heller and Bruen that definitively establish that an arm in common use is protected because of that fact. For example, Bruen concluded that no further analysis was required with respect to the type of arm at issue because the parties did not dispute that “handguns are weapons ‘in common use’ today for self-defense.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 32. That conclusion only makes sense if common use definitively establishes constitutional protection. See also Hanson, 120 F.4th at 259–60 (Walker, J., dissenting) (collecting additional examples from Heller and Bruen).”

Why does this matter? Because those appellate courts mentioned above need to be slapped down by the Supreme Court. Maryland introduces all kinds of not just garbage but also contradictory legal arguments in its brief. 

If a State can delay a right, it is effectively denied. Our rights also become privileges if the state can deny them because of bad actors abusing our right to keep and bear arms. All the state should do is punish those bad actors and leave the rest of us alone. The brief is short, at sixteen pages, and well worth reading yourself.

Here is Mark A. Smith’s short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RHE3QtePOM

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

Make sure you attend 2A Day on February 18th at the State Capitol and get your tickets for the IFC PAC BBQ Dinner that evening. Our featured speaker is Ft. Dodge, Iowa native and Hero: Major Jeff Struecker of Black Hawk Down fame. 

Please stay Ready at All Times, and help us defend all of Iowa’s rights by renewing or joining IFC today.

Shoot Straight, Speak The Truth, and Never Surrender Our Liberties.

Dave Funk
Member, Board of Directors
Iowa Firearms Coalition
#2A4IA