Woollard v. Gallagher: Normalizing the Fourth Circuit’s Approach to Second Amendment Challenges

William Young Jr.

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution preserves the individual right to keep and bear arms. This right, however, is in conflict with the problem of handgun violence in the United States. In an attempt to alleviate this tension, the State of Maryland devised a handgun-permitting scheme that, while preventing most citizens from carrying handguns in public, allowed those citizens with a “good and substantial reason” to do so. In Woollard v. Gallagher, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, facing a Second Amendment challenge to Maryland's permitting scheme, upheld the good-and-substantial-reason requirement. Drawing from its Second Amendment jurisprudence, the Fourth Circuit engaged in a straightforward application of precedent to an issue of first impression. The court's decision is consistent with the opinions of other federal circuit courts of appeals. While the scope of the Second Amendment right, as expressed by the Supreme Court of the United States, remains uncertain, handgun-permitting schemes that grant permits to those with a documented, articulable need for self-protection should withstand constitutional scrutiny.