A recent ruling from the Appellate Court of Maryland has clarified that simply seeing the outline of a semi-automatic rifle through someone’s clothing does not give law enforcement the right to stop and search them. The case involved Steven Hicks, a man who was stopped by a Baltimore police detective after the officer saw the outline of a gun through Hicks’s shirt. Hicks held a license to carry a firearm without restrictions.

Fourth Amendment Rights

The court decided that the stop violated Hicks’s Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable seizures. Judge Kathryn Grill Graeff wrote the opinion for the court, explaining that officers need more than just the sight of a weapon to justify a stop. “The police must have reasonable suspicion that the person is possessing the gun illegally or otherwise engaged in criminal activity,” Judge Graeff wrote.

The court’s written opinion clarified that the state relied entirely on the presence of the gun to justify the police action. The ruling is catching the attention of Second Amendment advocates, who see it as a step toward limiting government interference with gun rights. The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) pointed to the decision as another step toward protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners.

CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb connected the Maryland decision to a major 2022 Supreme Court case, noting that the legal landscape has shifted for gun owners and law enforcement alike. “The Supreme Court’s Bruen ruling in 2022 has shifted the dynamic for police in states where statutes presumed people carrying firearms were up to no good,” Gottlieb observed. “That’s changed, and law enforcement, along with local prosecutors, need to get up to speed on this issue.”

Original reporting: Tampa Free Press — read the source article.