Maryland Concealed Carry Location Bans Get Mostly Upheld (1)

Many of Maryland’s prohibitions on where people can carry concealed weapons don’t violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms, a divided Fourth Circuit said Tuesday.

The ruling is a loss for gun rights advocates because it shrinks where they can carry their guns for self-defense. The decision comes after the Maryland State Rifle and Pistol Association and an individual handgun owner asked the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to review a trial court decision allowing the state to ban firearms from schools, parks, and other “sensitive” places.

There are historical analogues to support the prohibitions, as required under the US Supreme Court’s holding in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, Judge Roger L. Gregory said for the Fourth Circuit.

The court unanimously upheld prohibitions on carrying guns in government buildings, schools, and health care facilities. The majority also upheld—with a dissent from Judge G. Steven Agee—prohibitions on guns within 1,000 feet of a public demonstration, and in state parks, museums, places of amusement, mass transit, and locations that sell alcohol.

Bruen directed courts to consider whether gun laws are supported by a history of similar regulations. In doing so, the high court used laws on gun possession in “sensitive places” to exemplify that approach, implying such regulations are justified by historical tradition, Gregory said.

The sole rejected prohibition is for carrying on private property held open to the public. “Maryland’s rule would effectively declare most public places ‘gun-free zones,’” Gregory wrote. “But that likely stretches the sensitive places doctrine too far.”

With respect to property not held open to the public, however, the plaintiffs lack standing to challenge the regulation, the Fourth Circuit said.

Maryland’s law mirrors location-based bans passed in other states, some of which are also being examined in the Second and Ninth Circuits.

Maryland “acts in its proprietary capacity” when it operates its mass transit, rather than as a steward of public land, and so can prohibit guns without infringing the Second Amendment, according to the opinion. The prohibition is also supported by history and tradition, since early railroad companies “routinely prohibited travelers from carrying loaded or improperly stored guns” in the nineteenth century, Gregory wrote.

Maryland’s prohibition on guns to preserve the tranquility of its parks and forests mirrors similar restrictions from the nineteenth century, the court said. The “extensive set of historical regulations banning firearms at places of amusement and social gathering” also justify a finding that restrictions in today’s stadiums, casinos, and other spaces fall within that historical tradition, Gregory said.

But Agee said the majority “simply fails to follow how the Supreme Court has directed courts to consider the historical tradition of firearm regulation” by using gun laws imposed after the Founding era to support Maryland’s restrictions. The high court cautioned in Bruen that courts shouldn’t uphold modern laws that remotely resemble a historical analogue, while recognizing that new societal or technological concerns require a more nuanced approach in some cases.

“How the Supreme Court has undertaken this historical inquiry demonstrates that the absence of Founding-Era regulations appropriately analogous to a challenged law means that the challenged law is unconstitutional, regardless of the later historical record,” Agee wrote.

Chief Judge Albert Diaz joined the majority.

Cooper & Kirk PLLC and Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP represented the plaintiffs. The Maryland Attorney General’s Office represented the state.

The case is Kipke v. Moore, 4th Cir., No. 24-1799, 1/20/26.