Thursday - September 25, 2014

They Just Won’t Quit

On the heels of ,a href="http://freebeacon.com/politics/dc-city-council-members-decry-having-to-follow-constitution/">being forced to adopt a gun carry law, DC City Council members decried the idea of anybody in the city owning a gun.

“We’d like to have much stricter–no carry rules at all,” Councilman David Grosso said. “and, preferably, no guns at all.”

“But the courts are ruling against us on this on a regular basis, and if they’re not, then Congress is coming down on us.”

They then debated whether or not they should expose the identity of gun owners to the public. “We should at least give our neighbors and residents a chance to know who has the gun, put it up there, let people be proud of it if they want to carry a concealed weapon,” Grosso said with a chuckle. “But at least we’ll all know who it is and we can treat them differently because they have a deadly threat in their possession.”

Councilman Phil Mendelson was more cautious, saying that “it runs the risk that we’re providing a means for somebody to find out who has a gun that then can burglarize or rob.”

“Who cares about the confidentiality of a gun owner?” Councilwoman Yvette Alexander said. “We don’t want it.”

DC’s new May-Issue carry law

n response to a federal court ruling that declared the city’s gun carry ban unconstitutional, the Washington, D.C., council voted to implement a restrictive may-issue carry law Tuesday. The new law is among the strictest in the country and may face new legal challenges, according to the Washington Post.

Tuesday’s vote was another example of the city’s liberal politics clashing with the federal judiciary’s increasingly conservative interpretations of the Second Amendment. In 2008, a Supreme Court ruling struck down the city’s three-decade-old handgun ban and set the stage for the end of the public-carry prohibition.

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) said the District’s new carry law is among the strictest in the nation, joining the likes of Maryland, New Jersey, and New York in establishing a highly restrictive regime that requires applicants to state good reason to want to carry a weapon. But he said a flat ban was no longer constitutionally feasible.

Alan Gura, the attorney for D.C. residents and workers who challenged the ban, said Monday that what becomes of the city’s gun laws will, indeed, continue to be an issue in the federal courts. Gura said the bill that passed Tuesday “plainly fails to comply with the court’s ruling” striking down the carry ban.

“The court instructed the city to treat the carrying of handguns as a right rooted in the constitutional interest in self-defense,” he said. “It’s not much progress to move from a system where ­licenses are not available to a system where licenses are only available if the city feels like issuing them. It’s something of a joke.”

Gura said he is prepared to take the matter before U.S. District Judge Frederick J. Scullin Jr., who struck down the carry ban in July and has scheduled an Oct. 17 hearing on the city’s request that he reconsider his decision.

“They have to explain why this is different than what currently exists,” Gura said. “I don’t believe they can do that.”

The bill would allow city residents who own properly registered handguns, as well as nonresidents with a state carry license, to apply for a permit to bear a concealed weapon in the District.

But applicants would need to show “good reason to fear injury to his or her person or property” or “any other proper reason for carrying a pistol,” and they would have to pass rigorous background checks and training requirements. The final decision on whether to issue a license would be the police chief’s, with appeals handled by a five-member review board.

Posted by Drew458     on 09/25/2014 at 10:15 AM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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