The Court of Appeals ruled against the Woollard Maryland CCW case, saying they prefer to rule by intermediate scrutiny and the case doesn't prove the the law in question violates that scrutiny.
What next? Alan Gura appeals. It either goes En Banc at the 4th or they refuse to hear it and the law stands and then it goes to the US Supreme Court.
It would have been nice if it ruled in our favor, as the Kachalsky ruling was also against us and this would mean a splite circuit and be a motivator for SCOTUS to hear it.
[update: is there a split decision with some other court of appeals or not?]
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The decision can be read here:
Woollard Decision
It is unfortunate that what is, to me, an obvious consequence of the phrase "keep and bear arms", that being the word "bear" strongly implies carrying the arms outside a domicile, is murky and fuzzy to jurists. In addition, the obvious implication of the introductory clause of having a well-trained (which is what "regulated" meant in the late 18th century) militia would necessitate carrying arms outside a domicile. Not to mention the right every person has to defend his life, and those of his loved ones. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but I needed to vent. High blood pressure and all that.
Now it needs to go to SCOTUS... sigh
The sad part is that it was a punt. 4CA said essentially "we don't think outside the home needs strict scrutiny, only intermediate and this law satisfies intermediate, therefore we aren't even going to touch 2A outside the home."
Besides the circular logic (which only makes sense in the legal arena for some reason), it's really a way to say "we don't want to rock the boat, we'll make the SCOTUS decide." The SCOTUS said that it shouldn't be the court of "first impression", which means that the SCOTUS shouldn't be the first court to rule on issues like 2A outside the home, that's the job of the districts and courts of appeal, leaving the SCOTUS to deal with circuit splits or to correct the CA when they screw up. This decision says "too bad, you must give us guidance, we don't want make the first call."
7th Circuit decided that the 2a means what it says, so we have a circuit split
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