The Supreme Court on Monday turned away an appeal by a group of gun rights advocates seeking to overturn Maryland’s ban on assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines under the Second Amendment.
The decision, a major win for gun safety advocates, leaves in place a ruling by the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals which ruled that the state may constitutionally prohibit sale and possession of the weapons.
The state legislation, enacted in 2013 after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, specifically targets the AR-15 – the most popular rifle in America with 20-30 million in circulation. They are legal in 41 of the 50 states.
I still don’t see what prevents someone from just buying a different model.
Nothing. I didn’t say it was an effective strategy, just what appears to be THE strategy at play
Then you haven’t read the law.
Here:
https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2013RS/bills/sb/sb0623f.pdf
Clearly you are the one who fails to understand this law.
While it bans standard AR-15s, it specifically allows AR-15s with “heavy barrels” referred to in MD as HBARs. Also, the barrel can be easily switched out after purchase.
The law simply took a list of 81 specific models of semi-auto rifles and shotguns and moved them from being “regulated longguns” (which required the same hoops and registration as a handgun) and instead made them illegal to purchase. The law also bans any center-fire semi-auto rifles and shotguns with detachable magazines from having certain cosmetic features.
Those cosmetic features have basically no relevance to lethality and can be added after purchase.
So yes, under this law, people can simply purchase other models not listed that do the same thing.
Ah yes, cosmetic features like… a grenade launcher.
Grenade launchers are regulated as Destructive Devices under the NFA.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act
It doesn’t ban the model. It bans a whole bunch of criteria that the model has, and many other guns do too. I’m not saying its impossible to skirt this one legally, but reading the law I’m not seeing a way to have a legal gun that is equally lethal.