While various gun rights organizations have been busy in the courts, it is a rare event when the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is directly involved in litigation, and even more rare to see the organization involved in a case distributed for a conference this Friday by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Citizens Committee,with some 650,000 members and supporters, is a grassroots activist organization while its sister organization, the Second Amendment Foundation, has become a legal powerhouse on gun rights issues. CCRKBA has traditionally remained in the background.
The case is currently known as Snope v. Brown, and it has been up and down the court ladder for more than three years. CCRKBA is joined by the Second Amendment Foundation and Firearms Policy Coalition, and hopes are high the Court will once again grant certiorari, with a full review and ruling. Snope challenges Maryland’s ban on so-called “assault weapons,” which plaintiffs contend is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.
In June 2022, just one week after the high court ruled in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the case was granted certiorari just long enough for a ruling favoring the Maryland law to be vacated and sent back to the Fourth U.S. District Court of Appeals for reconsideration under new guidelines established in the Bruen ruling.
“Now that the Fourth Circuit has stubbornly clung to its original, and fundamentally erroneous decision supporting the Maryland ban, CCRKBA and its allies have once again petitioned the Supreme Court for review,” the group said in a Wednesday news release.
“We’re definitely hopeful the high court agrees to take this case again and schedules oral arguments soon,” said CCRKBA Managing Director Andrew Gottlieb. “An affirmative ruling by the Court which settles the question whether modern semiautomatic rifles are protected by the Second Amendment will have a far-reaching impact across the country. A decision that removes any doubt about the right of the people to keep and bear modern rifles is long overdue.”
A decision by the Supreme Court affirming that modern semiautomatic rifles are protected by the Second Amendment would immediately bring groans and howls from anti-gunners, especially in other states where the rifles have been banned by Democrat-controlled legislatures and governors. Those states include California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Washington.
It would also destroy one of the gun prohibition lobby’s chief arguments against private ownership of such rifles. Anti-gunners have argued for years that so-called “assault weapons” are not protected by the Second Amendment because they are “military grade weapons of war.” It may have been a huge blunder to describe semi-autos in such a way, Gottlieb explained.
“Frankly,” Gottlieb said, “considering the emphasis anti-gunners place on the reference to the militia within the Second Amendment, it would clearly protect such firearms. The gun ban lobby obviously didn’t think their argument through very far.”
CCRKBA said modern semiautomatic rifles are used for all sorts of purposes including predator control, hunting, competition, recreational shooting and home and personal protection.
“The national implications of a Supreme Court ruling on Maryland’s ban cannot be over-stated,” Gottlieb observed. “Modern semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-15 are the most popular rifles in America today. They are used for hunting, predator control, competition, recreational shooting, home and personal protection. With millions of these firearms in common use, it would be inconceivable to think they are not protected by the Second Amendment, which does not specify the types of arms it protects, but only says the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It’s time for the court to put teeth in that phrase, and back it up with the full force of law.”
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