MONTGOMERY – Attorney General Steve Marshall announced Alabama has joined a 21-state coalition urging the U.S. Supreme Court to defend the rights of gun owners against efforts to ban certain firearms typically used by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.
In their amicus brief in the case Kolbe v Hogan, the states asked the Supreme Court to hear arguments against, and ultimately strike down, a Maryland weapons ban that infringes on the rights of legal gun owners by prohibiting the sale, transfer and possession of certain semiautomatic firearms and standard-capacity magazines.
“The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, in this case, must not stand since it would set case law in five states and potentially set the stage for a federal ban by a future Congress,” said Attorney General Marshall. “These firearms are already protected under existing case law relating to weapons that are lawfully carried by gun owners.”
Alabama and the other states argue the lower court ruling inappropriately limited the scope of the Second Amendment by taking an earlier Supreme Court ruling out of context.
Alabama, joined West Virginia, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming in filing the brief Friday.
