Mar 10 2007
A Big Change Coming To DC – Legal Guns
Washington DC is about to experience something very enlightening which will be impossible for the liberals and liberal media to ignore: the return of legal handguns:
IN OVERTURNING the District of Columbia’s long-standing ban on handguns yesterday, a federal appeals court turned its back on nearly 70 years of Supreme Court precedent to give a new and dangerous meaning to the Second Amendment. If allowed to stand, this radical ruling will inevitably mean more people killed and wounded as keeping guns out of the city becomes harder.
I could not resist using the Chicken Little claptrap from the liberal Washington Post to highlight what is about to transpire. Here in VA we have two very important sets of laws which keeps our gun-crime levels significantly lower than our neighbors in DC and MD. The first is a concealed weapons law which allows licensed and upstanding citizens to carry concealed handguns. The second is the use of Federal handgun laws to apply a mandatory 5 year sentence onto any state sentencing in the use of a gun in a crime. The gun doesn’t need to be discharged to get the five year minimum, no parole punishment. So if someone carjacks a car at gunpoint and might get 36 months for the carjacking, first they will do 5 years in Federal system for the gun law violation before they even begin their Virginia sentence.
These two campanion laws mean the majority of guns in this great state are in the hands of law abiding citizens. Few criminals want a gun on them, except for defending a drug stash or something similar. Even then, only the big criminals would take the risk. The criminals have dropped the use of guns because of the heavy penalties, and a good ten percent or more of this state’s citizens carry concealed weapons. Which means unarmed criminals run a high risk of running into armed citizens instead of an easy victim. Thus the fact we have a lot of guns in the state, but most are in the right hands.
Which is totally opposite of siutation in DC where even owning a gun is illegal, let alone being able to carry a concealed weapon on your person. So in DC the vast majority of guns are in the hands of criminals, with only a few typically good citizens who have been forced into illegally owning guns so they can protect the family and property. With the Courts finally throwing out the naive anti handgun laws whichsimply keep guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens DC will now face a new reality. They still need to prosecute gun crimes to the fullest extent possible instead of treating it like a drunk driver using a car as a weapon. Buit once guns are back into the hands of the good side the criminals will have no choice but to be less cavalier and open when going about ‘their business’. The subsequent drop in crime will be impossible to hide if things do turn around. And the crow will be out for the anti-gun (in hands of law abiding citizens) to feast upon.
Only a democrat would argue that 2nd amendment only applies to people serving in the military or is somehow conditional upon service as a member of the gov militia. That was the common state of things in tyrannical Europe that they came from (only nobility and military were allowed to posses firearms).
There is no early writing that supports the view that they intended to restrict this right in that manner. Further…it’s ridiculous to think they would in fact re-institute the same gov conditional restriction on firearms that Europe had and call it a “right” under our new constition. Ridiculous.
Further, the argument that constitutional rights somehow don’t apply in DC because it’s a district and not a state was something only a liberal could think up.
the ruling doesn’t legalize handguns immediately. it just remands the case (i.e. sends it back) to the district court for reconsideration. in the meantime the D.C. panel’s ruling might either be reconsidered en banc (with the full panel of judges from the DC circuit), and it will definitely be appealed to the supreme court because there’s a division in the circuits on the meaning of the 2nd amendment (they are divided 9-2 right now, with DC in the minority and one circuit that never considered the issue)
I believe UPYER is wrong — the ruling OVERTURNS the D.C. law. The mayor has 30 days to file an appeal, which he will likely do (& may eventually lead to the supremes). If not, then homeowners can legally own guns in D.C. before the end of April.
and your basis for saying i’m wrong is???
check out page 58 of the decision (pdf) page 58 is the last page of the majority opinion, the pages after that are the dissent. it clearly says that the matter should be remanded (i.e. sent back) to the district court and the district court is directed to enter summary judgment. there’s still another step in there even if there is no appeal (and there almost certainly will be an appeal)
I was going by newspaper articles … you’re right — it is “remanded” as it says in black&white. Obviously, an appeal is likely and probably all the way to the supremes. But the tables are reversed — the appeal (by Fenty) is that the D.C. law should not be overturned (no appeal and it is overturned). Your earlier post seemed to dance around this important point.