Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the District of Columbia
had violated the Second Amendment by making armed self-defense in the
home impractical and banning the most popular weapons used for that
purpose. Last week, the D.C. Council responded by unanimously approving
a law that makes armed self-defense in the home impractical and bans
the most popular weapons used for that purpose.
D.C.'s political leaders know they are inviting another Second
Amendment lawsuit, but they are determined to defy the Supreme Court
and the Constitution for as long as possible.
The new law "clarifies that no carry license is required inside the
home" to move a gun from one room to another. It also "clarifies" the
District's firearm storage requirements, saying a gun may be unlocked
and loaded "while it is being used to protect against a reasonably
perceived threat of immediate harm to a person" in the home.
Much hinges on what counts as a "reasonably perceived threat." If
you're awakened in the middle of the night by a crash, may you carry a
loaded gun with you as you investigate? Evidently not. The Washington
Post reports that D.C.'s acting attorney general, Peter Nickles, "said
residents could neither keep their guns loaded in anticipation of a
problem nor search for an intruder on their property." According to
Nickles, if you see an armed criminal charging your home, or in the
event of "an actual threat by somebody you believe is out to hurt you,"
you're allowed to get your gun, unlock it and load it.
How long will that take? The new law lets people use a gun safe instead
of a trigger lock, which, depending on the type of safe, could allow
faster retrieval. But even a gun in a safe has to be kept unloaded,
which will tend to slow down the owner's response to a "reasonably
perceived threat," assuming he can figure out what that means.
The delay will be even longer because of the District's ridiculously
broad ban on "machine guns." The Metropolitan Police Department says
the ban covers all handguns except revolvers, which are more cumbersome
to load than semiautomatics with detachable magazines.
Under D.C. law, "machine guns" include not only guns that fire
continuously but also guns that fire once per trigger pull if they can
fire more than 12 rounds without reloading or "can be readily
converted" to do so. According to the District's interpretation, even a
pistol that fires 12 or fewer rounds counts as a "machine gun" if it
could accept a bigger magazine.
That's why Dick Heller, the man who successfully challenged D.C.'s
handgun ban, was not allowed to register his seven-shot .45-caliber
pistol, which in the District's view might as well be an Uzi. Instead
he applied to register a .22-caliber revolver.
Speaking of registration, the District has established a burdensome
12-step process that involves multiple trips to gun dealers and
government offices, fingerprinting, a written exam and ballistic
testing. How long does all this take? "Up to 14 days," according to one
police department publication. "Approximately eight weeks," according
to another. "There are circumstances where it could take months," says
Police Chief Cathy Lanier.
Registration easily could turn out to be so onerous or capricious that
it effectively denies D.C. residents the right to keep and bear arms.
The District's revised firearm storage requirements are even more
clearly unconstitutional, since they unreasonably interfere with the
very function, self-defense in the home, that the Supreme Court said is
protected by the Second Amendment. Likewise the arbitrary ban on
semiautomatic handguns, the most commonly used self-defense weapons.
"I am pretty confident that the people of the District of Columbia want
me to err in the direction of trying to restrict guns," D.C. Mayor
Adrian Fenty told Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher. How about
erring, just this once, in the direction of respecting civil liberties?
