A federal appeals court ruled Friday in favor of Maryland’s tough requirements for obtaining a handgun license, a blow to gun rights supporters who have been fighting the law for years and a win for gun safety advocates.

The decision by the full 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was 14-2 in favor of the handgun qualification license law.

Senior Circuit Judge Barbara Milano Keenan wrote in the majority opinion: “The plaintiffs have not met their burden to show that the HQL statute ‘infringes’ the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, and, thus, they have failed to rebut the constitutionality afforded to the HQL statute.”

The two dissenting judges wrote that the majority relied on a “contrived reading” of the Second Amendment in their ruling. Maryland failed to provide sufficient historical basis for the handgun license law, wrote Judge Julius Ness Richardson, with a concurrence from Judge G. Steven Agee.

“This is a great day for Maryland and for common-sense gun safety,” Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, a Democrat who defended the law, said in a statement.

“We must ensure guns stay out of the hands of those who are not allowed, under our laws, to carry them,” Brown said. “The application for a gun license and the required training and background check are all critical safety checks.”

The case centers around Maryland’s handgun qualification license, or HQL, that was created in 2013 when state lawmakers passed the Firearms Safety Act. The law created strict rules for getting a license to own a handgun: a minimum age of 21, a state resident, completion of a multihour training course and not being barred from owning a gun by other state or federal laws.

The HQL process is overseen by the Maryland State Police, which is required to issue a license when an applicant meets all the requirements and passes a background check. The license holder can then buy handguns. Handgun licenses are good for 10 years.

But gun rights supporters argue that the requirements amount to a delay that is a “temporary deprivation” of their rights to buy a gun under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The advocacy group Maryland Shall Issue; a Montgomery County retailer, Atlantic Guns; and two individuals sued the state and state officials back in 2016.

In a statement, Maryland Shall Issue said the ruling that the handgun law doesn’t infringe on Second Amendment rights is “contrary to controlling Supreme Court precedent and is plainly wrong as a matter of common sense.”

In an interview, Maryland Shall Issue President Mark Pennak said the appeals court ruling was “astonishing” and counter to the standard set in previous court cases, including the 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which requires gun control laws to have a historical precedence.

While Pennak said the appeal to the Supreme Court, known as a writ of certiorari, will be easy to write, he said there’s no guarantee the high court will hear it. “We’ll do what we do, and we’ll wait to see what the court says,” Pennak said.

The advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety, meanwhile, applauded the ruling.

Janet Carter, senior director of issues and appeals for Everytown, noted that the 14-2 decision of the judges “wasn’t even close.”

“Requiring people who want to purchase a handgun to pass a background check and undergo gun-safety training is entirely consistent with the Second Amendment,” Carter said in a statement. “Keeping firearms out of the wrong hands is not a radical notion — it’s critical for public safety.”

Since the case was first filed in 2016, it wound its way through the courts. It was struck down by a three-judge panel of the appeals court in late 2023 — though the requirement to obtain a handgun qualification license has remained in effect during the litigation.

Democratic leaders vowed to continue to defend the law, and got the full appeals court to review the case, leading to Friday’s decision.

Officials for Gov. Wes Moore, who is the named defendant in the case, did not respond to requests for comment on Friday. Moore and some of his aides were returning from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.