The rulings in Maryland and Oregon come amid a shifting legal landscape in the wake of a Supreme Court decision that has imposed new limits on gun regulation.

In the wake of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that significantly limits what the government can do to restrict guns, states led by Democrats have scrambled to circumvent or test the limits of the ruling. A few have approved new gun restrictions. Oregon even passed a ballot initiative to ban high-capacity ammunition magazines.

But this week, supporters of the new gun measures suffered a pair of setbacks, underscoring the rippling effect of the court’s decision.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Va., ruled that a 10-year-old Maryland law related to licensing requirements for handguns was unconstitutional.

    • RGB3x3@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      1 year ago

      Most murders occur by firearm and it’s not even close. We’re in an arms race with each other to defend ourselves against all the guns that are causing our deaths. It’s a dangerous spiral.

      https://www.statista.com/statistics/195325/murder-victims-in-the-us-by-weapon-used/

      And guns are part of the tools that abusers use in abusing:

      For example, the 8-fold increase in intimate partner femicide risk associated with abusers’ access to firearms attenuated to a 5-fold increase when characteristics of the abuse were considered, including previous threats with a weapon on the part of the abuser. This suggests that abusers who possess guns tend to inflict the most severe abuse.

      https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.93.7.1089#_i8

      A small percentage (5%) of both case and control women lived apart from the abuser and owned a gun, however, and there was no clear evidence of protective effects.

      A victim’s access to firearms has little effect on their protection, but abuser’s access consistently makes abuse worse for the victims.

      It’s fine to assume that victims need access to firearms for protection because on the surface it sounds sensible, but the data shows that firearm access is actually making abuse situations worse for the victims.