Mayor Fenty this morning announced his intention for the city to appeal the recent loss to the Supreme Court, hoping to uphold the 30-year old ban on handguns in the city. The appeals court ruled in March that the ban was unconstitutional, and should be struck down. It wasn’t the final word, the Supreme Court remains in control of the fate of would-be handgun owners in DC.
DC’s ban on handguns is so strict, you cannot merely carry an assembled, unloaded firearm between rooms of your own home without being subject to the penalties put in place in the 1970s. Meanwhile, gun crimes in the District seem to range independent of the law, peaking back in the 1990s, with over 400 murders in a single year. The MPD doesn’t differentiate between murders with firearms versus murder by other means, and gun crime now is largely less than it was ten years ago, but since the law went into effect 30 years ago, other factors seem to be at play. Why continue to defend this unconstitutional law?
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.
