SCOTUS Wants to Hear From Maryland About Man Denied 2A Rights Over Failure to Pay Child Support

[TBoneTX 48,177]

This case should be really interesting to monitor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SCOTUS Wants to Hear From Maryland About Man Denied 2A Rights Over Failure to Pay Child Support

 

The Supreme Court is already slated to consider almost a half-dozen cases involving prohibited persons in their October 10 conference, but the justices are apparently taking an interest in at least one more case; this one involving a Maryland man who was charged and convicted of possessing a firearm as a prohibited person after he was previously convicted for failing to pay child support.  [...]

 

https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2025/09/29/scotus-wants-to-hear-from-maryland-about-man-denied-2a-rights-over-failure-to-pay-child-support-n1230074

[Ban Hammer 14,595]

i do not see any relationship between 2A rights and child support.  while not paying child support is bad, tying one's 2A rights to it is ridiculous.

Edited October 2 by Ban Hammer

[yuna628 9,915]

MD state law says that anyone convicted of a violation of common law crime which can involve prison time brings down such prohibition. These type of crimes could be something violent but could also be something such as shirking your parental responsibilities by being a longtime deadbeat. If attempts at getting child support fail in other ways, the state can use this sort of harsher conviction. Such crimes are not felonies but federal law says anyone convicted of any crime that may result in over a year of prison time should prevent possession of a gun. As the article states, if he had been convicted of even a lesser misdemeanor, it still would have triggered the federal block. Because of this prohibition he was convicted a second time of illegal possession of guns. These type of laws were designed to prevent those convicted of drug crimes or abuse from obtaining weapons. You can imagine many people might get caught up.

 

I cannot speak to the 2A claims, but if he lives here he should know the laws here. How did he obtain the guns illegally? Why or how did he obtain them and get himself into even deeper hot water? Also deadbeats need to pay their child support to avoid getting themselves into trouble.

[TBoneTX 48,177]

I think that the Supreme Court needs to make it clear what "shall not be infringed" really means.

[Ban Hammer 14,595]

On 10/2/2025 at 9:22 AM, yuna628 said:

I cannot speak to the 2A claims, but if he lives here he should know the laws here. How did he obtain the guns illegally? Why or how did he obtain them and get himself into even deeper hot water? Also deadbeats need to pay their child support to avoid getting themselves into trouble.

how many people know the ins and outs of their specific state laws?  i'm betting not that many.
i also suspect he may have possessed the firearms prior to the ruling - the story is not clear on that, but it is a possibility.  and i would not put it past the courts to fail to inform him of such upon the first conviction.
agreed about paying child support - whether one is male or female.

[yuna628 9,915]

I wanted to try and look at some additional background on this case: when the MD Supreme Court ruled on this, it was 6-1. The dissent noted that it could ensnare a person convicted of small crimes or petty crimes because the law has been advocating for harsher sentences. Why yes, as I mentioned above the feds wanted to prevent people even convicted of minor drug crimes to lose their weapons. The ban in this case is a federal issue, not really a state one. The state followed the law. Now I have also heard that the guns in his possession were actually illegally possessed to begin with, because he like... stole them, and attempted to pawn them. I don't believe this individual has a history of being an upstanding citizen gun owner. This case had multiple issues and questions such as, should the state of MD follow the federal law? (Well, what choice do they have under the law and the appeals courts ruled as such?) Should a person that is a convicted criminal and now also caught stealing and possessing guns he shouldn't have to begin with because of that federal law, be in bigger trouble? Certainly the act of stealing the guns would have landed him in felony territory anyway and he still would have had illegal possession charges because he stole them? He argued that he was a law abiding citizen, which is also dubious. How his lawyers attempted to frame it:

 

Quote

Applying this framework, the State disputed that Mr. Fooks’s conduct fell “within the protected right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home,” because although he possessed the firearms, he never owned them. Instead, he stole the firearms from a relative (hence the theft charge) and sold them at a pawn shop. In other words, the State asserted that because Mr. Fooks did not have a Second Amendment right in someone else’s firearms, his case was not different from “ordinary challenges” to disarmament laws https://www.mdcourts.gov/data/opinions/cosa/2022/0269s21.pdf

 

I understand this is being framed as a 2A issues, but man there are questions here. He's real mad about the child support thing, and he's real mad he got caught stealing guns. He was not a previous gun owner. He didn't go to a gun shop and say "I want a gun please let me fill out the background check"... nope, he just stole them for whatever purposes. I can only conclude he is not a good person or a responsible gun owner.

Edited October 7 by yuna628

[Ban Hammer 14,595]

1 hour ago, yuna628 said:

I understand this is being framed as a 2A issues, but man there are questions here. He's real mad about the child support thing, and he's real mad he got caught stealing guns. He was not a previous gun owner. He didn't go to a gun shop and say "I want a gun please let me fill out the background check"... nope, he just stole them for whatever purposes. I can only conclude he is not a good person or a responsible gun owner.

thanks for digging that up.  yeah, i don't see this as a 2A issue either given he stole the firearms.  

[TBoneTX 48,177]

Good research, Y ma'am.  It will be interesting indeed to see what the SCOTUS justices focus on and how they rule.