Attorney General Alan Wilson joins 28-state brief supporting 2nd Amendment rights

(COLUMBIA, S.C.) – South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson has joined 27 other states in an effort to protect 2nd Amendment rights. He joined a friend-of-the-court brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in a case against a Maine law that would impose a 72-hour waiting period for buying a gun.

“This same court has already ruled that the right to keep and bear arms is not a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees, so Maine’s restrictive law should be thrown out,” Attorney General Wilson said. “I will always fight to protect the Second Amendment, the Constitution, and the rule of law.”

In April 2024, Maine passed a law that would add a 72-hour waiting period before anyone could buy a gun. Several Maine residents sued, arguing that the new law violates their Second Amendment rights and asking a district court for a preliminary injunction to block the law. The district court granted the injunction, ruling that the “acquisition of firearms is covered by the Second Amendment’s plain text.”

In the brief, Attorney General Wilson and the other states argue, “Maine failed to carry its burden to show that its waiting-period law is ‘part of the historic tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms,’” and that Maine’s law “employs no standard at all to justify disarming individuals.”

Joining Attorney General Wilson in the brief, led by Montana, are the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, and the Arizona legislature.

You can read the brief here.