4th Circuit Upholds Maryland’s ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban, Says ARs ‘Ill-Suited’ for Self-Defense

We have described the AR-15’s capacities in abundant detail to demonstrate just how far outside the animating purposes of the Second Amendment this weapon lies. While we know that the AR-15 thrives in combat, mass murder, and overpowering police, appellants have failed to demonstrate that the weapon is suitable for self-defense. This is likely because such a showing would be difficult to make. Indeed, many of the weapon’s combat-functional features make it ill-suited for the vast majority of self-defense situations in which civilians find themselves

To wit: the heightened firepower of AR-15s “pose[s] a serious risk of ‘overpenetration’—that is, [bullets] passing through their intended target and impacting a point beyond it.” For example, AR-15 rounds “can pass through most construction materials, even at ranges of 350 yards,” thereby threatening the lives of “bystanders, family members, or other innocent persons well outside the intended target area.” (“[R]ounds from assault weapons have the ability to easily penetrate most materials used in standard home construction, car doors, and similar materials.”). Overpenetration poses a grave risk in the home—“where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute,” because firing an AR-15 in close quarters will often put the safety of cohabitants and neighbors in jeopardy.

The large magazines that are integral to the AR-15’s effectiveness in combat and mass murder are also ill-suited for typical self-defense scenarios. As the First Circuit has noted, “civilian self-defense rarely—if ever—calls for the rapid and uninterrupted discharge of many shots.” Indeed, “most homeowners only use two to three rounds of ammunition in self-defense,” with one study finding that when citizens fire shots in self-defense, they fire an average of two shots and, 97% of the time, fire five shots or fewer. 

The AR-15 also does not have any of the advantages that the Supreme Court identified in Heller as establishing the handgun as the “quintessential self-defense weapon . . . for home defense.” Compared to a handgun, the AR-15 is heavier, longer, harder to maneuver in tight quarters, less readily accessible in an emergency, and more difficult to operate with one hand. 

Outside the home, the AR-15 has even less utility for self-defense. It is significantly less concealable than a handgun and much more difficult to carry while conducting daily activities. When shot in cities, towns, or other densely populated areas where armed confrontations most often occur, the AR-15 presents at least as great a risk as it does in the home of harming innocent bystanders due to overpenetration. Moreover, public carry of an AR-15 in modern-day America may well “spread[] ‘fear’ or ‘terror’ among the people” due to its frequent and devastating use in mass shootings of innocent civilians— an effect that our common-law tradition has long regarded as incompatible with lawful carry for self-defense. 

In sum, the AR-15—with its military origination, combat-functional features, and extraordinary lethality—has “the same basic characteristics, functionality, capabilities, and potential for injury as the” And its all too frequent use in terrorism, mass killing, and police murder shows that the AR-15 offers firepower ill suited and disproportionate to fulfilling the Second Amendment’s purpose of armed self defense. Therefore, just like the M16, the AR-15 is “most useful in military service” and “may be banned” consistent with the Second Amendment. (cites omitted)

— Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Bianchi v. Brown

Schrödinger’s AR-15: It can be banned because it’s too powerful and also because its low power compared to other rifles gives it little recoil https://t.co/S89bynD6Rk pic.twitter.com/wF3d9A6hEE

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) August 6, 2024

What’s interesting is that despite a year-long delay, the Fourth Circuit issued this in time for the Supreme Court to take up the case in the fall, should they choose to do so.

https://t.co/ZotzOMZ1gn

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) August 6, 2024