WASHINGTON (WUSA) – District residents can start registering their guns today. But at least one very high profile application was already rejected.
Dick Heller is the man who brought the lawsuit against the District’s 32-year-old ban on handguns. He was among the first in line Thursday morning to apply for a handgun permit.
But when he tried to register his semi-automatic weapon, he says he was rejected. He says his gun has seven bullet clip. Heller says the City Council legislation allows weapons with fewer than eleven bullets in the clip. A spokesman for the DC Police says the gun was a bottom-loading weapon, and according to their interpretation, all bottom-loading guns are outlawed because they are grouped with machine guns.
Besides obtaining paperwork to buy new handguns, residents also can register firearms they’ve had illegally under a 180-day amnesty period.
Though residents will be allowed to begin applying for handgun permits, city officials have said the entire process could take weeks or months.
[Emporer Palpatene] Good…Good! Things are proceeding as I have forseen…[/Emporer Palpatene]
I dont even have words for that kind of stupid. Can they just label a mag fed semi auto weapon a machine gun which it cleary is not and get away with it?
You’ve got to be kidding. I guess you guys were right. DC just wants this crap tied up in court indefinitely to keep people from legally owning semi-auto weapons for self defense.
I’m actually disappointed he gave into the mag capacity thing. It would have been nice for him to try & register a G19 or something. That way, when the issue gets tossed to the courts, the constitutionality of magazine capacity limits could get settled.
My prediction: this will end much more quickly than folks believe. DC was specifically instructed by SCOTUS to allow him to register his pistol. Heller &co will probably take this straight to the Circuit Court and get an injunction, and the Circuit Court will not stay the injunction pending further review.
They are the Elite, best of the best! They can do anything they damn well please. The electorate got what they voted for. I don’t feel sorry for them. If you think that is bad wait a couple months. I think our (USA) next move will be to bend to the UN gun control, read (laws)…
Sounds like another wonderful challenge. The distrinct cant just label something a machine gun for the sake of. Looks like Heller is in for more legal fun…
It’s kinda funny, the left will eventually defeat themselves by handing us such wonderful legal challenges to take them to court over.
Just as we plan and pick our battles when making a logical argument for gun ownership you would think the left would take the same approach when making the argument against it.
There you go! or (if it’s how you do it in federal court, never had occasion to, but it’s what I would do in state court) file a motion for an order to show cause why Fenty et al. should not be held in contempt of court, and if at hearing on the same, cause not be shown nor the contempt purged by obedience to the Court’s mandate, then please, the lot of you, follow the nice U.S. Marshal through that door and sit in federal jail until such time as you totally feel like registering Mr. Heller’s gun like we told you to. On your way out, tender to the clerk a check for the gentleman’s attorney fees. Thank you, court is adjourned.
The article is two pages so I won’t paste the whole thing, but it sounds like it’s trying to downplay the importance of the fact this is the first day in decades that someone might have a handgun legally in DC limits. :rolleyes:
Noteworthy bits of insanity:
[Assistant Police Chief] Newsham said if anyone shows up to register a semi-automatic pistol that fits the city’s definition of a machine gun, police will confiscate the illegal gun but will not immediately arrest the owner. He said police reserve the right to investigate and eventually charge such an owner with violating the machine-gun ban.
The new law includes strict storage requirements that opponents of the handgun ban say violate the Supreme Court ruling. Gun owners must keep their pistols at home, unloaded and either disassembled or equipped with trigger locks. Weapons can only be loaded and used if the owner reasonably believes he or she is in imminent danger from an attacker in the home.
Ridiculous.
An applicant must fill out registration forms, submit fingerprints and pass a written firearm-proficiency test, while police ballistics experts test-fire the revolver. The revolver will then be returned to the owner, but he or she cannot legally use the weapon, even for self-defense, until notified that the registration has been approved. [emphasis mine]
There is an argument for placing an “undue burden” on gunowners such as “fees” and other roadblocks to exercizing your constitutional rights.
Harper v. Va. Board of Elections
Yep morons, but the SCOTUS and others should have known that morons would have their say…and just like I said in an earlier thread Heller simply opened more doors than it closed.
They lost, and rather than assume they have have to give in to everything, they are going to see how little they have to get away with, which will almost certainly be less than giving in to everything.
“If we had a large dog, large enough to be a horse, and we started calling it a horse, what would it be?”
Answer:
No matter what we called it, it would still be a dog.
The DC law enforcement officials are willful morons, and should be prosecuted for consciously denying citizens their civil rights, and then held personally liable for malfeasance.
Thank God for Heller, for his willingness to be the crash test dummy.
I must be an idiot. I still do not understand how they can call a semi-automatic handgun a machine gun. There is not one U.S state that uses their absurd definition. Not to mention the federal definition.
The only thing that surprises me about this is how little it surprises me.
Something tells me that every jurisdiction with a strict ban is watching this as carefully as we are. And there’s a part of me that’s glad that DC is resisting – am I alone in seeing this (potentially) as something of a gift?
