Pro-gun groups won a pair of legal decisions yesterday. A federal court in Maryland ruled that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms extends beyond the home and that citizens may not be required to offer “a good and substantial reason” for obtaining concealed carry permits. The case, Woollard v. Sheridan, was brought in 2010 by the Second Amendment Foundation on behalf of Maryland resident Raymond Woollard who was denied his concealed carry permit. In the decision, Federal District Court Judge Benson Everett Legg noted “In addition to self-defense, the (Second Amendment) right was also understood to allow for militia membership and hunting. To secure these rights, the Second Amendments protections must extend beyond the home: neither hunting nor militia training is a household activity, and self-defense has to take place wherever [a] person happens to be’.”
Meanwhile, the Colorado Supreme Court handed a win to Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCC) as it ruled that the Board of Regents of the University of Colorado did not have the right to restrict legal concealed carry on campus. The court’s decision was affirmed on statutory grounds and did not rule on the SCC’s constitution arguments against the ban on concealed carry on University of Colorado grounds. SCC was founded five years ago following the Virginia Tech massacre. There are now chapters across the United States.
