The gun control crowd loves clouding the issue about personal firearms – and misconstruing the idea that so-called “assault weapons” are too dangerous and too deadly for the American people to own.

They won, for a time, during the Clinton years. And now, they are pressuring Obama to once again use his executive action approach to put the 2nd Amendment in a restraining jacket.

But for now, the courts are pushing back. A Federal appeals court upheld the right to own guns like the AR-15 – celebrated and infamously portrayed as a “military-style” weapon despite being no deadlier than other firearms – challenging a Maryland assault weapons ban.

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It will be very difficult for the gun control lobby to accept defeat, and freedom lovers should expect a fight.

via the Huffington Post:

In a major victory for gun rights advocates, a federal appeals court on Thursday sided with a broad coalition of gun owners, businesses and organizations that challenged the constitutionality of a Maryland ban on assault weapons and other laws aimed at curbing gun violence. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said the state’s prohibition on what the court called “the vast majority of semi-automatic rifles commonly kept by several million American citizens” amounted to a violation of their rights under the Constitution. “In our view, Maryland law implicates the core protection of the Second Amendment — the right of law-abiding responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home,” Chief Judge William Traxler wrote in the divided ruling. Provisions that outlaw these firearms, Traxler wrote, “substantially burden this fundamental right.”

Gun rights have, of course, been under threat throughout the Obama Administration, and events like Sandy Hook have led to knee-jerk bans and violations of the 2nd Amendment, though they have been tough to defeat or stop in liberal states like New York, Connecticut and Illinois.

This case is considered a major victory… and may go all the way to the Supreme Court in due time. Until then, Maryland law will be affected only in the courts – and everyone from Obama to Mayor Bloomberg will be working overtime to create more friction for the right to keep and bear.

The importance of the case involves the use of “strict scrutiny” of constitutional protections – giving strong recognition to the right to keep and bear arms, and strength to the judicial case as a precedent:

“This case was a major victory for the NRA and gun rights advocates,” said Adam Winkler, a law professor at UCLA who specializes in Second Amendment law. “This opinion is an important one because it subjects important gun control laws to the most strict form of judicial scrutiny.” […] The 4th Circuit’s decision didn’t outright strike down the Maryland legislation. Instead, it instructed a lower court to subject the provision to the higher legal standard, meaning more litigation and the possibility of a future showdown at the Supreme Court — though maybe not yet, according to Winkler.

It appears that Obama is ready to go for broke during his last days in office, and attempt to undermine as many rights and constitutional laws as he possibly can, including assault weapons.

Shall not be infringed is still worth fighting for, but it might take everything we’ve got.

Courtesy of SHTFplan.com