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from the Mongomery Gazette
http://www.gazette.net/200314/montgomerycty/county/151381-1.html
http://www.gazette.net/200314/montgomerycty/county/151381-1.html
Gun shows take hit with federal ruling
by Manju Subramanya
Staff Writer
Apr. 2, 2003
Montgomery County scored a major victory in its battle to ban gun shows when a federal appeals court on Tuesday vacated a lower court's ruling that had declared illegal a 2001 county law restricting such shows.
The law sought to cut off county funding to any public or private organization that allowed gun sales and firearms displays. As a result, the privately owned Montgomery County Agricultural Center in Gaithersburg, which had received about $500,000 in taxpayer money, temporarily refused permission to Silverado Promotions of Frederick to host its semi-annual gun shows at the facility as it had been doing since 1990.
In June 2001, Silverado owner Frank Krasner, along with Baltimore gun dealer Valley Gun and Robert Culver of Silver Spring, sued the county in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt. Judge Marvin J. Garbis ruled in their favor in October 2001, saying that the county law was illegal because the county has no power to regulate the sale of guns in Gaithersburg, a city that has its own regulations regarding guns.
But the county appealed Garbis' ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals (Fourth Circuit) in Richmond. At a hearing in February, the county contended that Krasner and the others had no right to challenge the law because they had not received county money directly.
The Fourth Circuit said in its unpublished opinion on Tuesday that it could not proceed on the merits of the case without the question of jurisdiction being decided first.
Because Garbis had not addressed whether Krasner and the others have the right to sue the county, the appeals court sent the case back to District Court to decide that issue.
Krasner's attorneys had argued that the county law infringes on its right to free speech and violates a state law that pre-empts counties from enacting most gun control laws.
Even if the District Court determines that Krasner and the others have the right to sue the county, the Fourth Circuit said that "the novel case of state law at issue in this case" should be addressed to the Maryland Court of Appeals.
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