MD - Gun rights advocates challenge Maryland's restrictions on handgun carry permits

[Gunreference1]

Gun rights advocates challenge Maryland's restrictions on handgun carry permits

By Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 30, 2010

The gun rights advocates who successfully challenged the District's gun laws have moved their campaign to Maryland, filing a federal lawsuit claiming that the state's weapons restrictions violate the Second Amendment.

The seven-page suit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore challenges Maryland's restrictions on handgun carry permits. Under state law, applicants must show, among other things, that they are not addicted to drugs or alcohol, don't have a history of violence and have a "good and substantial reason" to carry a gun.

Plaintiff Raymond Woollard, a Navy veteran who once fought with an intruder in his Baltimore County home, was denied a permit because the state found that he could not show he had been subject to "threats occurring beyond his residence," according to the suit.

"He was only denied for lack of a so-called good and substantial reason," said Cary J. Hansel, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers. He said Woollard met all of the other hurdles.

"Imagine a world in which you had to go to the government and show a good and substantial reason to exercise your constitutional rights," Hansel said. "We are not arguing there shouldn't be background checks, fingerprints, mental examinations or training requirements."

The lawsuit comes in the aftermath of recent court victories for gun rights advocates. In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment provides Americans a fundamental right to bear arms that cannot be violated by state or local governments. The decision extended the court's landmark 2008 ruling that struck down the District's decades-old ban on handgun possession.

Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler declined to comment on the case, saying that state officials had not reviewed the arguments.

But Guillory said the attorney general's office reexamined state gun laws in the context of the recent Supreme Court rulings. "We have reviewed Maryland gun laws and concluded none of them are so stringent as to violate the Second Amendment," she said.

The lawsuit, also filed on behalf of the Bellevue, Wash.-based Second Amendment Foundation, names the Maryland State Police superintendent, Col. Terrence B. Sheridan, and three members of the state handgun permit review board as defendants.

Hansel said a permit generally is needed to carry a handgun outside the home in Maryland. There are some exceptions, he said, including taking a gun home after it is bought or traveling to a shooting range.

According to the suit, Woollard, who lives on a Baltimore County farm, was with his family on Christmas Eve 2002 when a man shattered a window and broke into his home. Woollard trained his shotgun on the man, but the two fought and the intruder pulled the gun away. Woollard's son eventually got another gun, ending the fight.

The intruder was convicted of burglary in that case and ultimately was sent to prison after violating probation, according to the lawsuit. The man, who was released from prison in 2005, lives about three miles from Woollard.

Woollard's handgun permit was renewed in 2005, according to the lawsuit. He sought to renew it again last year but was denied. The board found that Woollard had not "submitted any documentation to verify threats occurring beyond his residence, where he can already legally carry a handgun," the suit states.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/29/AR2010072905675.html?wprss=rss_metro/md

Steve

[Gunreference1]

Md. crime victim sues over denial to renew permit to carry concealed handgun

By Fredrick Kunkle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 15, 2010

On a snowy Christmas Eve a few years ago, Raymond E. Woollard was watching television with his family when he heard someone tapping at the windows of his Baltimore County farmhouse.

It was not Santa.

At the sound of breaking glass, Woollard dashed to his bedroom for a shotgun, and the holiday evening quickly became one of the most frightening nights of his life.

There was a hand-to-hand struggle for the weapon, but Woollard, with help from his adult son, eventually subdued the 6-foot-2, 155-pound intruder at gunpoint. Then they waited for more than an hour for police to find their way, on icy back roads, to the home, about 25 miles south of the Pennsylvania border.

That night made Woollard a crime victim for the first time in his life and also one of a select few Maryland residents to receive a license to carry a concealed handgun. But to Woollard's surprise, Maryland State Police denied his request last year to renew the permit, saying they thought the danger to his life had passed.

The agency said it was "because I hadn't been attacked" again, Woollard said in an interview. "They said, 'If you have any problems, you let us know.' "

Instead, Woollard filed a federal lawsuit July 29 to get his permit back, becoming the first person to challenge Maryland's gun control laws in the wake of two landmark Supreme Court decisions that have recalibrated the battle over gun rights and opened the doors to such challenges nationwide. The first, District of Columbia v. Heller, recognized individuals' Second Amendment right to own firearms and struck down the federal city's 32-year-old ban on handguns; the second, McDonald v. Chicago, held that the right also applies to other state and local governments.

Woollard, 62, of the Hampstead area, contends that the right to bear a firearm for self-defense is so paramount that a state agency should not be able to arbitrarily deny it.


"It's up to me. Do you have to show a reason to have a driver's license?" Woollard said. Under current law, the only people likely to carry guns are criminals who do not follow the law anyway, Woollard said. "And the police, as good as they are, show up after the fact."

After the 2002 break-in, Woollard said, he and his family waited 2 1/2 hours for police to arrive. Cpl. Michael Hill, a Baltimore County police spokesman, said records show that the 911 call came in at 9:52 p.m. and that because of icy roads, holiday staffing and the rural location, officers did not arrive until about 11.

The Second Amendment Foundation, a Bellevue, Wash.-based nonprofit group that was a plaintiff in McDonald v. Chicago has joined Woollard's lawsuit against the state police and the Maryland Handgun Permit Review Board. The lawsuit says that people should not have to prove "a good and substantial reason," as required by Maryland law, to exercise a fundamental constitutional right.

"I think that what's going to happen now is, we're going to start to test where these boundaries lie in what is a 'reasonable' and an 'unreasonable' regulation," said Dave Workman, a spokesman for the Second Amendment Foundation, which is challenging similar discretionary regulations in New York and North Carolina.

CeaseFire Maryland, a nonprofit group that advocates for gun control, brushed off the challenge.

"Good luck to him," spokesman Casey Anderson said. "I would have a hard time imagining that the Supreme Court is going to say you have a constitutional right to hide a firearm on your person."

Elena Russo, a state police spokeswoman, said the agency could not discuss a pending lawsuit.

In 2002, there were 4,405 Maryland residents with active permits to carry concealed handguns. As of July 31 this year, there are 47,471 active concealed-carry permits. In Virginia, there are more than 228,000.

A private person


Woollard is an unlikely person to become the face of a resurgent gun rights movement. The Navy veteran is an electrician and works for a government contractor in Baltimore, and he said he never gave much thought to using guns for personal protection until the break-in. He said the Remington 12-gauge shotgun he used against the intruder had only been used to hunt deer and smaller game.

His neighbors along Saint Abrahams Court describe him as private. Several said they have heard him shoot targets more often than they have heard him talk. Another said Woollard rigged a motion detector on his driveway, which snakes off the hard road for nearly a mile through fields and past a deer stand and a pond.

But he's not reclusive. Several neighbors said Woollard took part in a neighborhood campaign organized by the Prettyboy Watershed Preservation Society to block Loyola College's plan to build a retreat near their properties. Robin VandeWater, 49, said Woollard called her recently to spread the word that a coyote had been spotted near their homes.

In a phone interview the day after the lawsuit was filed, Woollard described a furious struggle with the Christmas Eve intruder, saying that the man had grabbed Woollard's shotgun, causing it to tumble down some stairs. Woollard's son, Bradley, then 25, got another shotgun and helped subdue the intruder.


Woollard, who said he has not had so much as a traffic violation since 1965, said he did not know the intruder. He described him as "some kind of nut" and declined to identify him. His lawsuit does not identify the intruder, but it says he has been released from prison and lives three miles from Woollard's home.

A family connection


Court records show that the man who broke in nearly eight years ago was Woollard's son-in-law, Kris Lee Abbott, 40, who has a history of depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and domestic violence.

After pleading guilty to third-degree burglary in the break-in, Abbott received an 18-month suspended sentence and three years' probation.

Court records show that his probation was terminated unsatisfactorily and that he was sent to jail after a series of violations, including a burglary in Carroll County and a violent confrontation with police in Baltimore County.

After the break-in, Woollard obtained a two-year permit to carry his .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver. The permit was renewed in 2005.

When he attempted to renew it again, Woollard said he was told that he had failed to show evidence of "apprehended fear," such as police reports indicating that he had been subjected to threats or harassment. The state police denied his application April 1, 2009. The Handgun Permit Review Board upheld the denial in November.

Asked about denying that he knew the intruder, Woollard said he was trying to protect his daughter. "This is about me being denied my permit," Woollard said. "It's not about my family, or my parents, or whoever was there that night."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/14/AR2010081402547.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/14/AR2010081402547_2.html

Steve

[Gunreference1]

National group weighs in on case challenging state gun-permit laws

Brady center urges dismissal of lawsuit challenging state's handgun carry permit process

March 22, 2011|By Justin Fenton, The Baltimore Sun

A national gun control advocacy group weighed in Tuesday on a federal lawsuit that challenges Maryland's handgun permit laws, saying that the changes sought would be "bad law and even worse policy."

In an amicus brief, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence urges the dismissal of a lawsuit brought last year by the Second Amendment Foundation on behalf of Hampstead resident Raymond Woollard, a Navy veteran who was denied a renewal of his handgun permit.

To read the rest of the story clilk the link below.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-03-22/news/bs-md-concealed-carry-lawsuit-20110322-15_1_state-gun-permit-laws-gun-control-advocacy-group-maryland-law

Steve

[Gunreference1]

2nd Amendment Victory in Maryland – Woollard v. Sheridan

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Ammoland

Maryland --(Ammoland.com)- We are pleased to announce that the United States Court for the District of Maryland has just ruled on case of Woollard v. Sheridan.

It appears that we have won a significant victory.

Briefly stated, the Court Concluded:

To read the rest of the story click the link below.

http://www.ammoland.com/2012/03/05/2nd-amendment-victory-in-maryland-woollard-v-sheridan/

Steve

[Gunreference1]

Gun owner wants wear-and-carry ruling to stand

Motion would protect ruling that made it easier for state residents to carry firearms

March 16, 2012|By Tricia Bishop, The Baltimore Sun

A Baltimore County gun owner, whose federal lawsuit led a judge this month to declare a portion of Maryland's gun laws unconstitutional, has filed a court motion to protect the ruling, which would make it easier for state residents to carry firearms.

Attorneys for Raymond Woollard filed the 29-page document in Baltimore's U.S. District Court at the close of business Friday in response to a filing last week by the Maryland attorney general's office, which sought clarification and a delay of the judge's order so the agency could have time to appeal.

To read the rest of the story click the link below.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-03-16/news/bs-md-gun-motion-20120316_1_raymond-woollard-gun-enthusiasts-alan-gura

Steve

[Gunreference1]

State files plan to appeal gun-carry ruling

By Tricia Bishop (http://bio.tribune.com/TriciaBishop), The Baltimore Sun
6:05 p.m. EDT, April 2, 2012

The Maryland attorney general's office filed a notice Monday in federal court outlining plans to appeal a recent ruling that significantly widens access to gun-carry permits throughout the state.

The ruling, which strikes down a portion of Maryland's gun laws as unconstitutional, has been stayed until the judge in the case can consider whether to require its enforcement while the appeal is under way.

To read the rest of the story click the link below.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/breaking/bs-md-gun-ruling-20120402,0,2082225.story

Steve