from WND:

The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to review a case against Maryland’s requirement that applicants for concealed-carry permits provide “good and substantial reasons” to fulfill their request.

Gun-rights groups that have filed a brief in the case, contending the law is unconstitutional, say it could have widespread impact.

The court, said Second Amendment Foundation founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “could define the parameters of bearing arms outside the home, and that will impact restrictive laws in several states where carry permits or licenses are strictly regulated, which translates to nearly impossible to get.”

SAF was joined by the Firearms Policy Coalition Inc., Firearms Policy Foundation, California Gun Rights Foundation and the Madison Society Foundation in filing the brief through Sacramento attorney Joseph G.S. Greenlee.

The 27-page asks the court to decide “to what extent the right to bear arms applies beyond the home,” because the question “has deeply divided lower courts.”

It notes that the D.C. and Seventh Circuits held that the right applies just as strongly outside the home as inside the home, while the First and Second Circuits determined that the right likely applies outside the home, but in a weaker form.

Meanwhile, the Third and Fourth Circuits declined to decide whether the right exists outside the home, and the Ninth and Tenth Circuits held that the right to bear arms does not protect concealed carry.

“Clearly,” Gottlieb said, “the lower courts need definitive guidance on this important constitutional issue. What other constitutionally enumerated fundamental right applies only within the confines of the home? It is time the high court takes up this issue to determine whether the Second Amendment vigorously protects a right, or allows states to treat it as a regulated privilege.”

The case, Malpasso v. Pallozzi, is not the only lawsuit against Maryland gun restrictions.

Gun owners have challenged the state’s demand that a firearm owner have at least a month of training.

A group called Maryland Shall Issue Inc. has filed a lawsuit contending the training requirement violates the Second Amendment.

Arguing a “right delayed is a right denied,” Gottlieb explained the licensing process is “expensive and lengthy.”

In the training-requirement case, he worked with the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership.

“”No citizen should have to jump through so many hoops simply to have a gun in their own home,” Gottlieb said. “There were no such requirements or regulations in Maryland at the time the Constitution was ratified, and the current regulatory scheme seems more intended to discourage responsible firearms ownership than guarantee that gun owners safely handle their firearms.”

Experience has shown that waiting a month to obtain a firearm can put a person’s life at risk, the organizations contended.

Read More @ WND.com