The Bellevue, WA-based Second Amendment Foundation is at it again, this time filing a federal lawsuit on behalf of a Maryland man whose gun permit renewal was refused because he could not demonstrate “a reasonable precaution against apprehended danger.”
Thanks to a 25-year-old state statute here in Washington, and a concealed carry law that dates back to 1935, this would not happen in the Evergreen State. More about that in a moment.
Raymond Woollard is a Maryland resident whose home was literally invaded by a man on Christmas Eve 2002 as the Woollard family gathered to celebrate the holiday. Woollard grabbed a shotgun, but the thug decided to fight. While they were grapping over the gun, Woollard’s son grabbed another gun and held the suspect, waiting for the police to arrive.
And therein lies a problem. According to court documents, it took the police “approximately 2.5 hours to arrive” because the local police could not decide in which county Woollard’s home was located. Adding insult to injury, when this guy went to trial, he was sentenced to three years of probation. He subsequently was arrested for assaulting a police officer, and burglarizing another home. Those convictions put him behind bars, but not for long.
The lawsuit alleges that “Individuals cannot be required to demonstrate that carrying a handgun is ‘necessary as a reasonable precaution against apprehended danger’ as a prerequisite for exercising their Second Amendment rights.” Plaintiffs are seeking a permanent injunction against enforcement of theprovision that requires permit applicants to “demonstrate cause” for the issuance of a carry permit.-Second Amendment Foundation news release Maryland
Woollard, according to the lawsuit, was issued a permit to carry a handgun. He renewed that permit in 2005, soon after the burglar was released from prison. That burglar now lives about three miles from Woollard. When he applied for a second renewal in early 2009, Woollard was advised that his application was “incomplete.” The reason? “Evidence is needed to support apprehended fear (i.e. – copies of police reports for assaults, threats, harassments, stalking).”
On April 1, 2009, Woollard’s permit renewal was denied by Terrence B. Sheridan, secretary and superintendent of the Maryland State Police. He appealed to the Maryland Handgun Permit Review Board, and last November, board members Denis Gallagher, Seymour Goldstein and Charles M. Thomas, Jr. ruled against Woollard.
The lawsuit names Sheridan, Goldstein, Gallagher and Thomas as defendants.
This is a similar challenge to the federal lawsuit filed by SAF about two weeks ago in federal court in New York against officials in Westchester County for denying gun permits to two people. This column discussed that case here.
Several years ago, lawmakers in Olympia passed legislation that takes away this kind of discretionary authority from local officials. State RCW 9.41.070 (1) requires that “The chief of police of a municipality or the sheriff of a county shall within thirty days after the filing of an application of any person, issue a license to such person to carry a pistol concealed on his or her person within this state for five years from date of issue, for the purposes of protection or while engaged in business, sport, or while traveling.” This is all discussed in my book, Washington State Run Rights and Responsibilities.
The chief of police of a municipality or the sheriff of a county shall within thirty days after the filing of an application of any person, issue a license to such person to carry a pistol concealed on his or her person within this state for five years from date of issue, for the purposes of protection or while engaged in business, sport, or while traveling. However, if the applicant does not have a valid permanent Washington driver's license or Washington state identification card or has not been a resident of the state for the previous consecutive ninety days, the issuing authority shall have up to sixty days after the filing of the application to issue a license. The issuing authority shall not refuse to accept completed applications for concealed pistol licenses during regular business hours.—RCW 9.41.070
Such discretion is often abused by local officials who limit carry permits to friends, campaign contributors, celebrities and the politically-connected. Average citizens are victims of discrimination, say critics of such laws. Proponents of such restrictive statutes, however, contend that it should be up to local authorities who gets to carry firearms in public; that is, they believe police should have the discretionary authority to prevent people from exercising a constitutionally-protected civil right. They don’t like the fact that millions of private citizens are licensed to carry concealed in 48 states, and they especially dislike the notion of open carry, as demonstrated earlier this year by Washington CeaseFire, which this column discussed here.
This morning’s column regarding CeaseFire President Ralph Fascitelli’s call for placing more restrictions on law-abiding gun owners – including making it more difficult to obtain a Washington Concealed Pistol License (CPL) – simply underscores this point.
“Laws that empower bureaucrats to deny the exercise of a fundamental civil right because they cannot show good cause to exercise that right can’t possibly stand up under constitutional scrutiny,” said SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “We are supporting Mr. Woollard in this action because constitutional rights trump bureaucratic whims.”
Let's make it more difficult for people to get concealed-weapons permits or to openly carry loaded weapons.”—Ralph Fascitelli, Washington CeaseFire
SAF and Woollard are represented by attorneys Alan Gura of Virginia and Cary J. Hansel of Joseph, Greenwald & Laake of Greenbelt, MD. Gura is the same attorney who led the legal fight in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that resulted in the incorporation of the Second Amendment to the states through the 14th Amendment’s Due Process clause. This has enabled SAF and other gun rights groups to file federal lawsuits against state and local gun control laws, which terrified and infuriated anti-gunners, as we discussed here.
As it stands today, SAF has lawsuits filed against gun laws in New York, Maryland and North Carolina. The latter case challenges the state’s emergency powers statute, which allows the governor or local municipalities to suspend the right to bear arms outside of the home after an emergency has been declared. This column discussed that case here.
Washington has a similar statute, RCW 43.06.220, which allows the governor to prohibit bearing arms outside of the home or business during a declared emergency.
Discretionary authority for issuing any kind of firearms “permit” is an open invitation for abuse, and according to gun rights advocates, cases in Maryland and New York prove it.
PLEASE FORWARD the link to this column and share with all of your chat lists and forums
PLEASE SUBSCRIBE by clicking on the link above
More from Gun Rights Examiners
Atlanta Ed Stone | Austin Howard Nemerov | Boston Ron Bokleman | Charlotte Paul Valone | Cheyenne Anthony Bouchard | Chicago Don Gwinn | Cleveland Daniel White | DC Mike Stollenwerk | Denver Dan Bidstrup | Des Moines Sean McClanahan |Detroit Rob Reed | Fort Smith Steve D. Jones | Knoxville Liston Matthews | Los Angeles John Longenecker | Minneapolis John Pierce | National David Codrea | Seattle Dave Workman | St. Louis Kurt Hofmann | Tucson Chris Woodard
And Don’t forget to visit:
Comments
The Maryland system is perhaps one of the most discretionary, with the exception of New Jersey, Hawaii and NYC.
Several years ago, when MSI requested the data from the Maryland State Police, I helped slog through it.
www.marylandshallissue.org/ccwdata.html
Dave,
"Discretionary Issue" is so fundamentally wrong on so many different levels, including the constitution. You are striking at the "Heart of the Beast," here.
After 28 years, we, here in Minnesota, were able to convert to a Shall Issue system in 2003, based on objective criteria and some training. The difference is like night and day. It took seven grueling years of education in order to convince the legislature to do so. I think that route is several steps better than leaving it up to essentially appointed judges to "divine" from ethereal concepts and principles after filtering them through their political prejudices and being able to twist the words and to FUBAR the concepts. After all, 30 years ago in Minnesota, we had our state Supreme Court decision that the 2nd Amendment did NOT apply and that, if it did, it would only allow the state to maintain a Militia. Seriously. It was the HCI playbook incarnate.
I hope that the judiciary is ready for what you are doing, here.
Ken,
Minnesota was just like Maryland, within a few percentage points, here and there. It is inherent in the design of a discretionary system.
We weren't able to force a change until the then Attorney General, Hubert "Skip" Humphrey, went on a crusade to convince issuing authorities to "tighten up" even further, based on his position as the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the state. Only then did the numbers crash even further, and the line police officers became our allies when their chiefs declined issuance of permits to them, too, giving them a taste of being no longer "special," but instead, only an "ordinary" citizen.
Only then did "Skip" Humphrey become the unintentional "father" of Shall Issue, here, because of the law of Unintended Consequences, and the backlash of simply going too far to tolerate in trying to boil the frog too quickly. Then the police chiefs tried to retaliate by going even further to whip us back into line.
We couldn't have done it without their
I've added a link in my post for tomorrow. Kudos to SAF!
You have to love this case. Sympathetic plaintiff with a good fact basis. Just like Heller and McDonald. Should be an easy win and a great way to generate some more case law.
Thanks to the SAF from myself and all residents of Maryland. The next case should be the handgun licencing in the state of Maryland.
Sad commentary indeed. Sounds like a patterned NYC finding to me.
For those interested, feel free to peruse my site:
sureshotconsulting.info
Safely yours,
Jc
The next step needs to be in NJ, where the CCW app says you need to show justifiable need. What happened to "shall not be infringed"?
When are they coming to help California? I am an active duty military firearms instructor and can not get a CCW in California.
This is the problem, when government and politicians simply ignore your rights under the constitution. They assume charge of you and your life. Everything you do, must go through them and have their approval.
And who gave them the right? Nobody. They just did it cause they wanted to, cause somebody's got to be in charge! Can't let thought stupid people make decisions for themselves! Freedom means that THEY are free to decide what YOU can do and when and also how much it will COST, you.
They're not going to change folks, and they're not going to repeal any of this crap until they have no choice.
And in addition to the concealed carry permits, permits to buy a handgun should also be abolished. We don't need a permit to speak freely, so we shouldn't need a permit to exercise our Second Amendment Rights.
My Florida CWL was issued simply and correctly, and is in valid in 27 other states. This includes all neighboring statesto MD. Reciprocity and nationwide acceptance passed in the U S House, but failed to win a supermajority. If a qualified, NRA-trained or honorably discharged vet, non-criminal, non-drug abuser, who has no restraining orders and no felonies, and can qualify to BUY a gun, why can't he (she) be qualified to carry it concealed? The existing laws prevent him (her?) from carrying into a bar or a Federal Building or Post Office - that should be more than enough. We'll see what the new candidate or Governor, Bob Ehrlich (R), has to say on this subject.
The 'only' reasonable restriction is a NCIS check with no 4473.
National carry law should be modeled after Vermont's.
Steve R,
Ehrlich's been Governor once already, and there wasn't anything done on CCW. However, in fairness to him, without the legislature coming along for the ride ain't nuttin' gonna happen.
Also, one will likely have to get a hearing before the Maryland Court of Appeals, and they are likely not gonna be sympathetic if former Judge Alan Wilner is representative of the Court.
www.msa.md.gov/msa/mdmanual/29ap/former/html/msa11679.html
www.progunprogressive.com/?p=93
Your articles are extremely well-written, and I ardently enjoy reading them. Thanks for this well-documented and informative piece.
So, is SAF fighting Washington's RCW 43.06.220 that you mentioned there is a similar case against NC?
I live in Maryland, and I can say with certainty that gun control does not work. Maryland has some of the most stringent "gun control" regulations, and some of the highest violent crime rates, in the country, year after year. Making guns illegal doesn't make them go away, it only guarantees that the only people around who are armed are the criminals, who do not obey laws. The same was true in the prohibition era and with today's drug war. Making something illegal does not make it go away. Gun control only has the effect of making the average citizen an easy target for crime. The criminals know it, and unaltered crime statistics and logic prove it. There are two choices when it comes to weapons: armed or victim. Maryland forces it's citizens to be potential victims, because all criminals prefer unarmed victims. Hopefully the time has finally come for the average person to be able to deter crime simply by possibly being armed.
To secure peace is to prepare for war. Unless you live in Maryland, where you have to call the police to mop up the mess afterwards, if you are still alive.
I agree completely with the post above. I attend the University of Maryland and while on campus people are safe enough, but if you leave campus after dark you're taking a big risk. It seems sometimes like almost every week someone is getting held up at gunpoint for only the money in their wallet or an ipod. The criminals around College Park simply aren't scared, they know they're the only ones carrying firearms and they use that to their advantage.
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!