D.C. Gun Law Shot Down

Washington D.C. has the toughest restrictions in the country on personal gun ownership and possession...or they used to. The D.C. Circuit struck down those laws today as a violation of the 2nd Amendment. Here's the key graph from the opinion:

To summarize, we conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. That right existed prior to the formation of the new government under the Constitution and was premised on the private use of arms for activities such as hunting and self-defense, the latter being understood as resistance to either private lawlessness or the depredations of a tyrannical government (or a threat from abroad). In addition, the right to keep and bear arms had the important and salutary civic purpose of helping to preserve the citizen militia. The civic purpose was also a political expedient for the Federalists in the First Congress as it served, in part, to placate their Antifederalist opponents. The individual right facilitated militia service by ensuring that citizens would not be barred from keeping the arms they would need when called forth for militia duty.

Despite the importance of the Second Amendment’s civic purpose, however, the activities it protects are not limited to militia service, nor is an individual’s
enjoyment of the right contingent upon his or her continued or intermittent enrollment in the militia.

The gun laws in D.C. have been a joke for some time, because along with their extreme anti-gun positions, they also had a ridiculous crime rate. Their gun laws did nothing but deprive the good guys of owning firearms for their own protection and pretty much guaranteed the bad guys free rein in an unarmed city.

One of the city's main arguments was that the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms applied only if the person was a member of a militia, and since there is no D.C. Militia, the locals didn't have that right. Not so.

This will undoubtedly be elevated to the Supremes, and could come up for a decision right about the time the election is really heating up in '08. The Dems never look good when questioned about gun rights, and this would be a good time to get them on record regarding this case.