Amicus Brief Filed to Defend Firearms Safety Act of 2013

February 14, 2014
For Immediate Release
Contact: Vincent DeMarco, 410-591-9162

Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence Files Amicus Brief to Defend Life-Saving Firearms Safety Act of 2013

On Friday, February 14, 2014, Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence will file an Amicus brief in the United States District Court in Baltimore, in defense of the state’s landmark Firearms Safety Act of 2013. We commend the Office of Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler, which has been highly effective in defending the Act from a challenge filed by the gun lobby, attempting to overturn certain important provisions of the new law.

Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence will seek leave of court to make additional factual points to supplement the constitutional arguments advanced by the state.

“We are pleased to provide support to the Maryland Attorney General’s Office in defending Maryland’s life-saving Firearms Safety Act of 2013,” said Vincent DeMarco, the organization’s president. “Our Amicus brief demonstrates that assault weapons are not in fact protected by the Second Amendment. They are nearly identical in firepower to machine guns, which have been strictly controlled in the United States since the 1930s, and have been banned for manufacture for private sales since the 1980s.”

“Maryland’s civic leadership believes that the federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, will uphold our ban on these firearms,” DeMarco stated. “There is no Second Amendment right to weapons of mass destruction — like the kind used to murder twenty 6- and 7-year- old children and six adults in the Newtown massacre of December 2013.”

View the Amicus Brief Here

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