Her ruling is essentially irrelevant at this point, as it will be appealed for a de novo review. It is not her ruling that renders the split, but that of the Appeals Court, and the split is on scrutiny, not on the viability of the ban.
Correct me if I'm wrong (and I almost surely am). But if she twists the logic around to where the ban is permissible under strict scrutiny, then our appeal would be less about the level of scrutiny and more about whether AR's and standard magazines are common weapons/etc/etc/etc. The Supreme Court could ignore the scrutiny issue (again), though even then I think they'd be stretching to do that. But if agreeing to ignore the scrutiny issue is what it takes to get 5 votes, I think they would pass on it. There definitely is politics at play in SCOTUS..
Whereas if she rules the bans unconstitutional under strict scrutiny, then Maryland's primary appeal would almost certainly be over the level of scrutiny that should be required.
I don't expect both her and the appeals court to uphold a ban under strict scrutiny, but I didn't expect the Supreme Court to let the Highland case with at least 1 split already out there.
