HyleTX

I am pleased to be representing Eva Gardner before the United States Supreme Court along with my colleague John Ohlendorf. Here is an excerpt from the intro to the reply brief we have filed in support of the Court taking the case: While Petitioner was traveling through Maryland from her home in Virginia to visit her mother in Pennsylvania, she was forced off the road by what she believed was a police-type maneuver. When the other driver got out of his car and approached Petitioner in a way she perceived as threatening, she “was terrified” and responded by engaging in a common, effective, and non-lethal self-defense measure: simply displaying the firearm that she was licensed by Virginia to carry and that she had brought with her on her journey for self-protection. It is difficult to imagine conduct that falls more squarely within both the Second Amendment’s “plain text” and America’s tradition of legitimate “armed self-defense.” New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 24, 29 (2022). Yet Maryland responded to this incident by convicting Petitioner—not for behaving inappropriately in any way during the encounter, but solely for bringing her firearm with her for her protection as she traveled along Maryland’s interstate highways.