The District of Columbia vs. District of Columbia v. Heller

reason.com ^ | 12 May, 2011 | Damon W. Root

[marktwain]

The Washington Times editorializes against Washington, D.C.’s continuing refusal to respect the Second Amendment in the wake of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller:

In its ruling, the Supreme Court smacked down D.C. gun-control measures and reaffirmed the constitutional protection for the individual’s right to own a handgun. Since then, the District has cooked up a labyrinth of pointless restrictions and rules crafted to ensure this fundamental right would rarely be exercised. The city may have gone a step too far, as it is now impossible for any law-abiding citizen to obtain a gun in the nation’s capital.

That’s because the District manipulated its zoning laws to ensure gun brokers would not be welcome. With no gun stores, the only way to obtain a pistol lawfully is to make a purchase in another state and have the gun shipped to a Federal Firearms License (FFL) holder in the District. A federal law prohibits acquisition of a firearm across state lines in any other way.

The lone FFL holder doing business in Washington recently lost his lease and can no longer perform such transfers.

As the editorial notes, the Second Amendment Foundation and victorious Heller and McDonald v. Chicago lead attorney Alan Gura brought suit against the District this week in order to set this ridiculous matter straight. Considering D.C.’s blatant disregard for the Second Amendment and Gura’s impressive legal record on behalf of gun rights, I don't imagine this one will end very well for the District's Second Amendment opponents.

Read the full Washington Times editorial here. Read Reason's coverage of D.C. v. Heller here. Watch Gura talk gun rights with Reason.tv below.

[marktwain]

Video at the link.

[yldstrk]

Sick freaks.

[A Strict Constructionist]

Nothing will be done until politicians are sent to jail for failure to follow their oath then forbidden to ever hold office again.

[ctdonath2]

There’s a federal law against deliberate suppression of rights. It should be applied. The punishment is...severe.

[Lurker]

There’s a federal law against deliberate suppression of rights.

18USC242.

[Still Thinking]

When do we get to the point where there is some actual punishment for the infringers, some consequences? The current plan seems to be any law infringers make is assumed to be constitutional (running afoul the “precautionary principle” so beloved of liberals) and they get to infringe away for the years, perhaps decades, it takes for a challenge to reach SCOTUS. Then SCOTUS says, in effect, “You may no longer infringe in this precise manner, but there’s no recompense for the unconstitutional infringement that’s already transpired while your victims waited for justice. There will be no particular disincentive for you to come up with some OTHER infringing scheme and start the whole process over with time once again on the side against justice, even if the new scheme is only cosmetically different than the one we just struck down, or even if it’s arguably prohibited under this very ruling. Go your way and infringe till the next time we stop you. Next!”