The Fourth Circuit made a very good decision in the case of Nathaniel Black.  They didn’t seem to care about that decision and specifically violated their own precedents and showed they couldn’t care less about consistency in the case of U.S. Versus Robinson.  Now they have gone off the deep end.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld Maryland’s ban on semiautomatic guns with certain military-style features that the state passed after the 2012 mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.

The 10-to-4 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit vacates an earlier panel decision that cast doubt on the constitutionality of the ban that is similar to laws in seven states, including California, Connecticut and New Jersey.

The ruling from the Richmond-based court goes further than other appellate courts that have reviewed similar laws in stating clearly that “assault weapons and large-capacity magazines are not protected by the Second Amendment.” The majority opinion, written by Judge Robert B. King, refers to the banned firearms as “weapons of war” that the court says are most useful in the military.

In a strongly worded dissent, Judge William B. Traxler Jr. said his colleagues have “gone to greater lengths than any other court to eviscerate the constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms.”

That they have, and they have also added language to both the second amendment and Heller that isn’t there.

“It’s unthinkable that people could say that those weapons of war are protected by the Second Amendment,” Frosh said Tuesday. “Especially when you look at the carnage at Newtown and elsewhere around the country.”

[ … ]

Like Maryland, Connecticut’s ban was expanded after a gunman used a military-style semiautomatic weapon to kill 20 students and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The 81-page opinion issued Tuesday opens with a detailed description of that day, including the number of rounds of ammunition fired, and goes on to describe mass shootings involving similar military-style firearms in a long list of other U.S. cities.

“We have no power to extend Second Amendment protection to the weapons of war that the Heller decision explicitly excluded from such coverage,” King wrote in the 4th Circuit opinion, referring to the Supreme Court case known as District of Columbia v. Heller.

The court also found that Maryland lawmakers were justified in passing the ban in the interest of public safety because magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition “enable shooters to inflict mass casualties while depriving victims and law enforcement officers of opportunities to escape or overwhelm the shooters while they reload their weapons.”

Forget the fact that Charles Whitman used a bolt action long gun (Remington 700), that storied Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock used a Winchester Model 70 .30-06, that Marines initially in Iraq during the push to Baghdad used the same rifle for long distance shooting, and that Marines in Now Zad, Afghanistan, used 12 gauge shotguns for room clearing operations.  Left unsaid is why the laws don’t regulate assault hammers.  This is what happens when idiots try to make legal decisions who have no knowledge of the facts.

It’s also what happens when men and women who have no moral compunction about violating their oath of office get to make judgments that affect the rest of the country.  Recognizing the right of every citizen to have the weapon that best allows him to defend his own family isn’t an expansion of the second amendment.  And Heller said nothing about forbidding semi-automatic firearms from its scope, semi-automatic firearms having been around for more than a century when Heller was decided, in use by both civilians and the military.

This neat, clean bifurcation between civilian and military weapons is non-existent, an imaginary phantom concocted by judges to make themselves feel better for depriving citizens of their rights, pretend sociology wrapped up in legal language.  These are God-given rights, not subject to the whims or vicissitudes of judicial political leanings.

Here is the ruling.  Frosh said “It’s unthinkable that people could say that those weapons of war are protected by the Second Amendment … Especially when you look at the carnage at Newtown and elsewhere around the country.”  Well think it, collectivist hack.  I’m telling you flat out that weapons of war are protected by God, and included within the scope of the second amendment.

Whether citizens of Maryland choose to stay and fight or move to a free state, remember Matt Bracken’s advice.  “If you have eighteen guns and twelve of them are declared illegal, how many do you have?  Eighteen.  Your move.”