A Washington, D.C., resident had a concealed-carry permit when Maryland authorities arrested him for carrying a firearm.
The problem for Darius Duvall was geography.
His permit came from the District of Columbia, while his traffic stop and subsequent arrest happened in Maryland, a state that does not recognize carry permits issued by other jurisdictions.
Now several major gun-rights organizations want Maryland’s highest court to examine whether that policy can survive under the Second Amendment and recent U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
The Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association, Maryland Shall Issue, California Rifle & Pistol Association, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, Second Amendment Law Center and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms have filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court of Maryland to hear Duvall’s appeal.
Their argument focuses on a simple question with potentially significant consequences for interstate travelers: Should a person who can lawfully carry a firearm in one jurisdiction lose that ability merely by crossing into Maryland?
Maryland State Police materials state that Maryland does not honor concealed-carry permits issued by other states and has no reciprocity agreements recognizing them.
The gun-rights organizations contend that this approach conflicts with the country’s historical treatment of travelers.
“Travelers from other states were usually allowed to carry their firearms concealed,” the organizations argued in their friend-of-the-court brief.
“The historical tradition of these ‘traveler’s exception’ laws is not some outlier, but overwhelming to the point that it justifies this Court summarily reversing the decision below,” they continued. “It is especially relevant here, given the Petitioner was arrested while traveling in a vehicle.”
That historical argument is important because of the framework the U.S. Supreme Court has applied to Second Amendment cases in recent years.
Under the Supreme Court’s modern Second Amendment jurisprudence, courts examining firearm restrictions must consider the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. The organizations argue that historical laws granting protections or exceptions to travelers undermine Maryland’s current approach.
They also point to the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Wolford v. Lopez and Hemani v. United States, arguing that those rulings provide additional reason for Maryland’s highest court to reconsider Duvall’s case.
“Interstate visitors are Americans, yet states like Maryland treat them as suspect foreigners that need to be re-vetted before exercising a fundamental right,” the groups wrote. “As this brief will concisely show, our historical tradition demands exactly the opposite.”
The organizations acknowledge that courts have previously declined opportunities to resolve the reciprocity question. Several of the groups had participated in an earlier Supreme Court brief seeking review of the issue, but neither that petition nor the related Maryland litigation produced the ruling they wanted.
They aren’t giving up.
“We’re going to keep up the pressure,” Second Amendment Foundation Director of Legal Research and Education Konstadinos Moros told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“It’s not that we’re confident that any petition will necessarily be granted, but we’re just going to keep banging on that door in hopes that they do.”
The organizations also cited litigation from Hawaii containing an extensive collection of historical state laws that they say demonstrate special treatment for travelers carrying concealed weapons.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown’s office declined the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
The immediate case remains about Duvall, but the constitutional question extends beyond one driver and one traffic stop.
States routinely recognize licenses and legal privileges issued elsewhere in numerous contexts, while concealed-carry reciprocity remains a patchwork. A firearm owner can consequently be carrying legally before crossing a state boundary and violating another state’s law afterward.
Gun-control advocates can argue that states retain authority to establish their own licensing requirements and determine whether an out-of-state permit satisfies those standards. The gun-rights groups are arguing that when the activity involves an enumerated constitutional right, Maryland cannot simply treat a visitor’s ability to exercise that right as disappearing at the border.
