It has been seven long years since the Supreme Court last heard a case dealing with the Second Amendment. And with confirmation hearings for Judge Neil Gorsuch set to begin later this month, there’s renewed hope that the nation’s high court will once again weigh in on one or more of the many cases having to do with our right to keep and bear arms.
There’s no doubt that in the years since the court last spoke in the McDonald v. Chicago case, striking down Chicago’s ban on handguns, lower courts have twisted the Second Amendment beyond all recognition in their zeal to uphold as many gun control laws as possible. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, in particular, has managed to nearly write the Second Amendment out of existence in a series of decisions issued over the past few years.
Most recently, in the Kolbe case, the 4th Circuit ruled that not only does Maryland’s ban on guns it deems to be “assault weapons” withstand constitutional scrutiny, the arms in question are not even protected under the Second Amendment! Ten judges on the court ruled that these semi-automatic firearms are “like” the guns used by our military in combat theaters, and since the Heller decision said that “weapons that are most useful in military service—M16 rifles and the like” could be banned, these commonly owned firearms fall outside of the scope of the Second Amendment.
by Cam Edwards, Host, NRATV’s “Cam & Co.”
