Appeals court upholds Maryland’s ban on ‘excessively dangerous’ assault weapons

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld Maryland’s ban on the sale and possession of military-style assault weapons in the state, raising the possibility of another Supreme Court showdown over gun laws.

In what’s known as an en banc hearing, the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit heard oral arguments in the case in March, with the circuit ruling 10-5 Tuesday in favor of upholding the ban.

The law had been challenged several times over the years but a 2022 Supreme Court ruling, known colloquially as “Bruen,” reopened fresh challenges. The Bruen decision, authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, said gun laws should not be evaluated by whether they serve the public good, but if they’re aligned with the nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.” That means courts are to compare current laws with historical analogs from the Revolutionary and post-Civil War Reconstruction eras.