Unfortunately, the Supreme Court today struck down part of the District of Columbia’s handgun ban. I wanted to drop you a note to let you know the immediate impact of this decision.
The Supreme Court’s ruling is limited and leaves intact various other laws that apply to private residents who would purchase handguns or other firearms for home possession. It is important that everyone know that:
a… First, all firearms must be registered with the Metropolitan Police Department’s Firearms Registration Section before they may be lawfully possessed.
a… Second, automatic and semiautomatic handguns generally remain illegal and may not be registered.
a… Third, the Supreme Court’s ruling is limited to handguns in the home and does not entitle anyone to carry firearms outside his or her own home.
Lastly, although the Court struck the safe storage provision on the ground that it was too broadly written, in my opinion firearms in the home should be kept either unloaded and disassembled or locked.
I will comply with the Court’s reading of the Second Amendment in its letter and spirit. At the same time, I will continue to vigorously enforce the District’s other gun-related laws. I will also continue to find additional ways to protect the District’s residents against the scourge of gun violence.
Residents who want additional information can visit the Metropolitan Police Website at www.mpdc.dc.gov/gunregistration. Residents with questions are encouraged to contact the Firearms Registration Section at 202-727-9490.
No doubt about that, but how many years back in the courts to settle it?:mad: I’m sure the Feds aren’t going to arrest the DC Chief of Police in order to get them to comply.
My knowledge of these things is somewhat limited, but could they NOT hold her in contempt? Or is ‘in common use’ the same thing as ‘pornography’? Depends upon your point of view?
I bet someone is up late working RIGHT NOW on this.
The “common use” rule is going to be all over the place IMO. And, isn’t the DC ban like 30 years old? I’m sure revolvers make up much of the grandfathered handguns in DC. So it would appear DC could make the argument that autos are not in common use by law abiding residents of DC. Just throwing out some stuff here.
We therefore read Miller to say
only that the Second Amendment does not protect those
weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens
for lawful purposes, such as short-barreled shotguns.
Simply substitute automatic pistols for short barreled shotguns.
I later added a quote from the opinion you may have missed in my above post. As little sense as it makes that seems to be exactly what they are saying.
hatt, I dig ya, but I don’t think they get to make such a substitution arbitrarily because semiauto pistols are used lawfully by loads of people every day, all over the Country. I damn well use mine in such a manner every day.
Plus they are ‘common’ and not ‘unusually dangerous’.
I think Scalia threw in the common and unusually dangerous thing to demostrate that you can NOT for instance own towed arty or nukes.
It’s pretty common for a plaintiff to ask for an injunction suspending the enforcement of the law when filing a lawsuit challenging a law that has an overwhelming chance of being overturned. I would suggest that since the DC Circuit Court ealier struck down the law on its own, ahead of the SCOTUS ruling, that now the Circuit Court would have even more latitude to grant injunctive relief to any plaintiff that challenges the city if they are unable to register their semi-automatic handgun.
Predictably, and perhaps understandably, Chief Lanier is attempting to forestall complete chaos while she and her betters come to terms with what constitutes a clear rebuff from the highest court in the land. That said, it would appear that she hasn’t quite embraced the reality of this defeat.
To suggest that the most commonly-owned types of handguns in modern America (semi-automatics) should be subject to continued restriction because the wheelgun was more the more common sidearm when the ban was originally enacted … well, that is just the silliest kind of willful ignorance that I’ve seen in a long time. I can only wonder how many follow-on memos the department will issue until they actually find themselves in compliance with the law.
Let’s see, what handguns are most commonly in use in DC…hmmm, I think Metro PD, Capitol Police, Secret Service, FBI, DEA, U.S. Marshalls, etc… are all using SEMI-AUTO pistols. Thus it would be pretty hard to argue that semi-auto pistols are not in common use in DC.
I’ve got nothing but good things to say about the Doc, but his original post actually sort of struck me as a potential apples and oranges comparison.
As I understood it, the standard of “common use” by the American people at large is not really the same thing as what might constitute “common use” in a governmental or law enforcement setting. I did not get the impression that the ruling supported the position that we should have access to the same kinds of arms that the various alphabet agencies have, for instance, but rather that the people of DC should have access to the same kinds of arms that are commonly available to civilians elsewhere in other parts of the nation. Perhaps I am the one that is missing the point here. If so, my apologies.
Either way, I’m not sure that the framers felt that this was a distinction worth making, but it would seem that SCOTUS did draw something of a line here. They stopped well short of giving us carte blanche for repeal of the NFA and/or private ownership of a select-fire M4, for example. Pity, that.
I think we need to look at the bigger picture and ask what is in common use throughout the Unites States of America and clearly semi-automatic handguns are. Hopefully, the NRA and others go right back to court and challenge the you can have a “handgun” as long as it is a revolver. I also do not think that she should be interjecting her “opinion” in something like this that is meant for the residents if D.C. This is just a perfect example of what the politicians and certainly many Chiefs of Police are will do to make life difficult for legal gun-owners and make zero impact on the PoS criminals.
A municipality/state government is allowed to interpret “common use” any way it wishes. So long as it doesn’t outlaw handguns as a class.
The court decision stated that there was no requirement of parity with law enforcement or military armament. Moreover as Federal agencies they would be exempt from any local gun ordinance.
Now the question is will this survive the inevitable challenge?
Maybe, maybe not, but even if it does there are no civil-rights violations as DC remains firmly within the boundaries of Heller. Moreover they will use Stevens’s dissent as a framework.
The problem is that if it does, then it will establish a precedent saying that the only requirement is for revolvers, but otherwise handguns can be restricted/infringed as the government sees fit.
The issue at hand, from a legal standpoint, is that SCOTUS ruled a particular set of legal prohibitions in the District of Columbia were unconstitutional. It did not rule on, or even address, many other prohibitions in the District such as the machine gun and ammunition laws. In Washington DC, any firearm that is capable of being fired 15 times in a row without reloading is a machinegun and all of them are illegal.
While we can all debate whether the Heller decision should invalidate that law, too, it’s not unexpected (or even unreasonable, legally) for the District to keep it on the books & enforce it until either the city council or courts take the law off the books.
