In a grossly ill-advised ruling, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld Maryland’s 2013 Firearms Safety Act, which bans 45 types of semi-automatic rifles and imposes a 10-round limit on ammunition magazines.
"Put simply, we have no power to extend Second Amendment protections to weapons of war," Judge Robert B. King wrote for the majority in a 10-4 en banc ruling. Judge William Byrd Traxler Jr. wrote a dissenting opinion.
"It is absurd to hold that the most popular rifle in America is not a protected ‘arm’ under the Second Amendment,” said NRA spokesman Jennifer Baker in blasting the ruling. The court’s decision, she noted, “clearly ignores the Supreme Court's guidance from District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects arms that are ‘in common use at the time for lawful purposes like self-defense.’
