Frosh defends assault weapons ban, cites 19th century knife restrictions

Maryland’s ban on semiautomatic assault-style weapons passes constitutional muster because it is in keeping with the nation’s history of restricting “extraordinarily dangerous” offensive weapons dating to the bowie knife in the early 1800s, the state’s attorney general told the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week. Brian E. Frosh’s historical defense of the weapons ban followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last summer that gun regulations are constitutionally valid if they comport with the text, history and tradition of firearms restrictions when the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791 or when the 14th Amendment extended the right to keep and bear arms to the states in 1868.