Gura Wins Another Gun Case

Maryland law found to be unconstitutional in Federal court, and guess who was leading the charge:

• The Second Amendment right to bear arms is not limited to the home and Maryland's requirement that residents show a "good and substantial reason" to get a handgun permit is unconstitutional, according to a federal judge's opinion filed Monday.
  
  The right to bear arms has historically been understood to allow for militia membership and hunting, which extends the right beyond the home, U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg wrote. States can channel the way residents exercise their rights, but because Maryland's goal was to minimize the number of firearms outside homes by limiting the privilege to those who could demonstrate "good reason," it had turned into a rationing system, he wrote.
  
  "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."
  
  
• "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 his attorney Alan Gura, who has challenged handgun bans in the District of Columbia and Chicago. "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."
  
  The lawsuit names the state police superintendent and members of the Handgun Permit Review Board.

The naming (and holding liable) of government officials who would seek to deny citizens their Constitutionally protected Rights is genius. A few financial judgements against police executives and unelected "review boards" may restore power to the citizenry and away from government.

And speaking of the Right to Carry:

• The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Monday that students and employees with concealed weapon permits can carry handguns on University of Colorado campuses, overturning a ban by the school's regents.

  Gun-rights advocates had challenged the university policy that was adopted in 1994, arguing that the university's governing board had superseded state gun laws.

  The justices agreed, noting that the state's concealed-carry law, passed by the state legislature, trumped the university's policy.

Interesting how the bastions of liberal thought constantly think they can supersede the laws of the state.