D.C. Legislation Would Remove More Gun Limits

TPaine7

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Sun Sep-14-08 02:21 AM
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D.C. Legislation Would Remove More Gun Limits

Source: Washington Post

D.C. officials, coping with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that threw out the city's handgun ban, have drafted legislation that would do away with several remaining firearms restrictions, including safe-storage requirements and a provision that bars ownership of semiautomatic pistols.

The legislation could come up for a vote in the D.C. Council as early as Tuesday -- the same day the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on a bill that would virtually end local handgun control in the District.

The developments mark another step in what has become a dramatic shift in public policy regarding firearms in a city still plagued by gun violence. Thirty-two years after the first generation of elected D.C. officials under home rule enacted the nation's toughest gun control statutes, banning handguns entirely, the current leaders face a different political and legal climate and appear resigned to debating how best to have a less restrictive law.

....

Although the move by the city to ease handgun restrictions coincides with the House effort to virtually strip the District of its power to regulate firearms, Mendelson said officials are not seeking to placate members of Congress. He said the proposed changes, which he will urge the council to pass Tuesday, result from a careful review of the Supreme Court decision in the weeks since it was issued June 26.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091203642.html

For years, the government of the District of Columbia has forbidden self-defense with a gun in the home. (Armed defense of one's business was allowed.) They have required that rifles and shotguns be kept unloaded and either trigger locked or disassembled, so as to be totally useless. It was illegal to assemble or load a gun, even when one was under imminent threat. It was apparently better, in the eyes of D.C. officials, that citizens be raped, killed, kidnapped, or witness their families suffer than that they assemble or unlock and load a gun.

When confronted with this fact in the recent Heller case, the District tried to convince the Supreme Court otherwise. They tried to pretend that there was an exception for self-defense. Fortunately their opponents pointed out the truth--the record clearly shows that D.C. defeated that very defense in McIntosh v. Washington. Those interested in reading more should follow the link at the foot of this post to my open letter to Obama, and search for "Sensible Gun Control."

Since Heller , the District has sought to enforce its unconstitutional will on the residents of D.C. who wish to be armed. (The fact that many residents support a particular unconstitutional provision is irrelevant, whether the subject is religious freedom, the right to be free of torture and coercion in interrogations, the right to free speech, or the right to keep and bear arms.) They have forbidden common semi-automatic weapons, labeling them "machine guns"--which they clearly are not.

It is good to see these people finally running scared. They may never get the punishment they deserve for depriving innocent Americans of their civil rights--for 32 years!--but at least they are apparently getting the message that the Constitution outranks city hall.

It's also entertaining to read their denials that this has anything to do with the spanking House Democrats and Republicans are preparing to give them. Yeah, right.