06/18/2026
Another interesting thing that happened. And this was all 14 judges on the Maryland Appellate Court. Maybe they’re not as anti-gun as we thought.
In a major ruling out of the Appellate Court of Maryland, all 14 judges agreed that police cannot stop someone just because they see or suspect a concealed handgun. The case centered on Steven Hicks, who was in a group on a Baltimore street when officers thought they saw a gun printing under his shirt and moved in for a stop and frisk. Hicks told them he was licensed, but they pushed ahead anyway, dug past a basic pat‑down, pulled items from his pockets, and eventually found guns and drugs. A lower court let that evidence in, but the appellate court tossed it, saying Bruen changed the landscape: public carry is now “presumptively lawful,” so the mere presence of a gun does not equal reasonable suspicion of a crime.
The judges were clear. The “mere possibility” that a person might not have a permit is not enough to justify seizing them. If cops want to stop and search someone over a firearm, they need specific facts suggesting the gun is being possessed illegally or that some other criminal activity is going on. Just seeing a bulge, a print, or a hint of a holster is no longer a free pass to treat you like a criminal. That is a huge shift in a state that long treated handgun carry as “presumptively illegal” and used that assumption to justify a lot of stops, especially in places like Baltimore.
For concealed carriers, this decision is big. It reinforces that exercising a recognized constitutional right cannot, by itself, be the excuse to detain and frisk you. It also shows how Bruen is still rippling through lower courts, forcing states to admit that “shall issue” and permitless carry regimes mean what they say: regular people with guns in public are not automatically suspects. The fight is far from over, and Maryland’s AG is already “reviewing” the ruling, but for now the message is clear: in Maryland, guns ≠ crime by default.
