Snope v. Brown — Amicus Brief

ddavies Firearms Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Today, we filed an Amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Fourth Circuit decision approving Maryland’s 2013 ban on “assault weapons.”   The banned firearms are ordinary semi-automatic weapons and most are “commonly used,” if not ubiquitous among the gun-owning public, except where banned by a few states.  We argue that the Fourth Circuit’s decision was really an attempt to circumvent Bruen.  We argue “the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct” in possessing such a weapon. Our brief shows that the “plain text” of the Second Amendment presumptively protects bearable firearms and Maryland could provide no relevant historical analogues. Link to brief

Crouch v. Anderson — Amicus Brief Supporting Petition for Certiorari

ddavies Constitutional Law, U. S. Supreme Court

Our amicus brief filed today urges the Supreme Court to review a Fourth Circuit decision ordering West Virginia Medicaid to pay for gender transition procedures.  The opinion was based on modern transgender ideology, finding no difference between removal of cancerous tissue and removing healthy body parts.  The Fourth Circuit based its decision on that court’s Grimm v. Gloucester Co. School Board case — a case in which our firm filed four amicus briefs to prevent a girl from accessing the boys restroom.  Now that seemingly innocuous (and erroneous) precedent is being badly misused. The circuit court relied on Standards of Care of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (“WPATH”), but in recent months, an abundance of evidence has surfaced that WPATH is an advocacy group, not an independent medical organization.  Even the American Society of Plastic Surgeons rescinded its support for and is reassessing its position on transgender surgery.  There was no justification to expand the Equal Protection Clause to require dangerous and irreversible procedures to make persons suffering a type of mental disorder feel better about themselves. Link to brief