June 30, 2008
Will Gun Shops Open in D.C.?
Despite warnings from both city officials and your trusted bloggers at DCist, it looks like District residents were visiting gun shops over the weekend in Virginia and Maryland to try to take advantage of their freshly interpreted Second Amendment rights. Fortunately, as the Post reports, gun store owners are holding off on taking advantage of the new business -- they're waiting to see what regulations the city eventually chooses to impose on the purchase and ownership of handguns for District residents.
Of course, one of the consequences resulting from the U.S. Supreme Court's historic decision will be whether or not gun shops will eventually be able to open within city limits. The Post's Marc Fisher tackled the issue today:
I asked Fenty whether the court's ruling means that the District must now allow retail sales of guns. "It's hard to say," the mayor replied. "Who knows what the demand is." He said there have been no discussions about how or whether to proceed toward any new regulations on gun retailing. The District has had a couple of gun dealers who were grandfathered in from before the gun ban went into effect in 1976. Those dealers, working from offices or home rather than from a storefront, sold their wares to security guards and law enforcement officers. But the mayor didn't seem terribly eager to incorporate gun shops into his economic development agenda.Even if the D.C. Council decides that gun shops should be able to open in the city, we can only imagine how complex the negotiations will end up being as to where they'll actually be. After all, if single beers and strip clubs can provoke the uproar that they do in many ANCs across the city, should we expect anything less from gun shops? Local officials and residents have a good deal of power when it comes to zoning issues, so we should expect plenty of fights over where any gun shops could actually open. They wouldn't be allowed anywhere near schools, bars or liquor stores, and those limitations would be enough to give any prospective gun retailer a headache. Add an over-eager and bad-tempered commissioner (hello Frank Winstead!), and the spaces available for gun shops decrease even further.
These sorts of questions could even kick off another legal battle centering on how far a community can go in imposing regulations -- not on guns, but on where to obtain them. The Supreme Court didn't really provide much guidance on this, so we should be ready for a long, hot summer of debates.
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I can think of at least one customer who would be very pleased if a store opened up on Massachusetts Ave. NW.
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If for some reason DC just can’t find a space for a gun store, I can see the courts ordering the District to open their own gun store, and why not. The only way you can get a legal gun is through a District Government run gun shop, with a 500% tax imposed on the sale, which will support community bullet proof vest giveaways and midnight basketball.
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My spidey sense is tingling. Which means I have to pee from 3 cups of coffee.
But it also means that if DC tries to effectively continue the ban on gun stores via administrative regulations, it's gonna be a long, expensive legal fight that I doubt the city is likely to win. It's also going to invite congressional involvement from someone attaching a rider to some obscure bill that will either require DC to re-write its zoning laws or will do the re-writing on its own.
City officials are going to have to decide whether they are going to comply fully with the Supreme Court ruling, or whether they will do only the bare minimum and basically dare people to sue them to do more.
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I hate America.
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i'd love to see some redneck congresscritter from flyover country (hello louie!) try to do a comprehensive rewrite of our zoning laws.
the amount of crap that would unearth is immeasurable. i doubt anyone would try. what's going to end up happening is that the law will be worked somehow so district residents can legally purchase guns outside of the district and bring them back across "state" lines.
no one is going to want a gun store in their neighborhood, and no gun shop owner is going to want to deal with the hassle of trying to set up shop here.
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The best place to put a gun store is inside the police station where you can do the registration and then get your gun.
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I'd like to echo RJ...the District should suck it up and open their own shop in DC; otherwise they're in for another long legal fight that they're not likely to win. I'd envision a shop that sold a limited number of handguns that are pre-ballistic tested and pre-registered to cut down on overhead.
Or, barring that, DC can take a page from Chris Rock and allow guns but charge $100 a bullet.
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and I wonder if they'll allow the registration of guns that were, ummmm, already in DC?
They already have the money for guns amnesty. I would think they'd have a similar interest in getting people to register unregister firearms.
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Am I the only one sensing a tight business opportunity here??? Anyone??? You'd have a monopoly! I would want my gun shop to be combined with an Olive Garden. Come for the guns, stay for the unlimited breadsticks.
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@smittydc: I believe the city will allow for the registration of currently unregistered (and thus illegal) handguns.
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Anyone want to go in on opening a gun store and range? We could just print money....
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Maybe DC could have a trial store at one of the booths in the Texas section of the Folklife Festival. I'm sure they'd be MORE than willing to lend a hand.
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I vote for a little gun stand in the lobby of the Reeve's Center along with the incense and other crap people sell there...
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Phooey! There's a way to open gun shops in DC tomorrow.
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Heh heh--never thought about the Smithsonian.
But what I was figured is we forget the gun shops altogether. What DC needs is a gun manufacturer! Get rid of the middlemen altogether. Direct sales of guns made by DC residents for DC residents avoids all those pesky FFL requirements.
Better yet, use prison labor for the manufacturing--who better to build high quality arms for the law abiding folks of DC than the killers who have been using guns against them since 1976?
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I think a lot of us can't wait for the gun store to open, if for nothing else so people can stand outside and see just what paranoid d-bags go in to get some protection for their highly valuable, self-defense-fantasy-addled asses. I think every third person will look like a pastier, slightly smaller Karl Rove.
It would be sort of like another take on the whole abortion clinic thing, except the wannabe clint eastwood jerk offs would be walking in with a bunch of sweaty peaceniks outside picketing. Then one day it all goes horribly bad when they wave thier picket sign in the face of the wrong guy... I predict many fun news cycles from this.
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If you are looking for the only Federal Firearm license (FFL) "dealer" in DC.
Check them out:
Josh Sugarmann
Violence Policy Center
1730 Rhode Island Ave Nw #1014
Washingtion, DC 20036
Phone: 202 822 8200
email: www.vpc.org