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As we mentioned yesterday, gun sales in the District will officially kick off next Tuesday, Sept. 9. But the city's only licensed gun seller so far won't actually be selling guns, he'll just be facilitating transfers from guns purchased in other states. So what about gun shops?
In June we predicted that no matter what the Supreme Court's ruling said, the battle over guns in the District would boil down to where they could actually be sold. Second Amendment or not, zoning regulations are sure to be one of the most significant obstacles to buying a gun within the city limits. And though quietly, those zoning battles have already begun.
A few weeks back the Examiner reported that any future gun shops will likely be limited to the downtown area and be at least two football fields apart from each other. According to the emergency regulations passed by the D.C. Zoning Commission on July 28, gun shops would be limited to the downtown corridor (roughly between Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Avenues) and a 25-block area between Independence Avenue and M Street SW, and would not be allowed within 600 feet of a residence, school, library, church or playground. For you zoning nuts, the regulations state that gun shops are only allowed in C-3, C-4, and C-5 zoned districts, but even there only after receiving a special exemption from the Board of Zoning Adjustment.
This week DC Watch reported that the Zoning Commission has scheduled a hearing on September 29 to decide whether or not to make the limitations permanent. (Emergency regulations only stay in effect for 120 days.) The public is invited to testify, though anyone with an opinion to share has to formally express their intention to do so in writing. The full details are here (.PDF alert!).
Various members of the D.C. Council have already expressed their opposition to the regulations, calling them overly restrictive. Seems unlikely that Dick Heller and other gun advocates would suddenly go all shy on us, so expect a spirited fight to loosen the restrictions on where gun shops can and cannot open. (They're big fans of the buy local movement, after all.) Then again, neighborhood activists are probably going to rise to the occasion too, arguing that gun shops should be located as far away from houses, parks, schools, playgrounds and libraries as possible.
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According to the emergency regulations passed by the D.C. Zoning Commission on July 28, gun shops would be limited to the downtown corridor (roughly between Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Avenues) and a 25-block area between Independence Avenue and M Street SW, and would not be allowed within 600 feet of a residence, school, library, church or playground.
In other news, Smoking Now Permitted Only in Special Room in Iowa.
Isn't this kinda like declaring that convicted child molesters can't live near children or schools or playgrounds or ice cream parlors, basically zoning them out of 99% of neighborhoods? Not that I'm comparing gun sellers to child molesters. I'll have to leave that to a far less brilliant mind than mine.
The city government has made the decision to make it as difficult as possible for residents to purchase guns, as the Supreme Court said was their constitutional right to do so. The city would rather spend millions of dollars on losing court cases than simply implement a reasonable policy. And, of course, each of those lost court cases will be used by the true gun nuts to seek to overturn gun regulations in other cities and states throughout the country. I simply don't understand what the Fenty thinking is, other than seek to delay for as long as possible complying with the Heller decision.
So are there any laws saying you can't sell them from a Mister Softee van? If they won't license a building, let them sell guns out of a truck on the Mall. Just tack on an amendment to the vendor licensing agreement so that they can sell revolvers along with icecream and halfsmokes and bootleg Calvin-pissing-on-whatever teeshirts. Boom! Problem solved. And with a frequent shooter card, with every 9th frogurt, you get a free derringer.
The derringer is also cursed.
fact is, the only place that's going to make sense, and be far enough away from everyone who could bitch about things, is haines point. right where the awakening used to be. who wants to go down there with me this weekend and stake a claim?
Forget Haines Point. When it isn't flooded out, Marion Barry is trolling around in his Jag eating powdered donuts and claiming the police are trying to set him up. The last thing he needs is easy access to firearms.
Say what you want about Marion Barry. He's a crack-smoking disgrace. He's set back the cause of DC voting rights by decades. He's a racebaiting weak-kneed political timeserver. He's a cannibal necrophile. But one thing he is not is a porn star.
But one thing he is not is a porn star.
Thank God for small favors...
I miss Barry. He was good canon fodder at the local pub when toasting our pints of Guinness.
As far as guns go, DC politicians will never learn.
I can't wait until rival gun dealers start shooting it out to defend their territories.
That's not powder on those donuts
I would totally patronize a Mister Softee van that sold guns, halfsmokes, carnitas, and porn. I fact, I'd probably never leave.
Hmmm....do the zoning regulations say anything about a floating gun store? Cuz I'm thinking about a passenger ferry/sightseeing boat/gun store business.
But one thing he is not is a porn star.
Thank the gods that the FBI rushed in when they did.
I dunno.. as long as the zoning regs don't completely zone gun shops out of the District, I'm not sure it's a winner for Heller, et al. The Court upheld the right to bear arms, but not the right to not have to travel across town to buy a gun.
The Odyssey cruise boat could only benefit from an onboard gun store. And a casino. And a brothel. And definitely a new cook staff, because that rubber chicken they serve is suitable only for patching tires.
It's kind of a slippery slope for the Mayor and the Council, because once they start licensing dealers, then they're going to have to start allowing hunting licenses in DC. And once they allow hunting licenses in DC, they're going to have to allow hunting that most dangerous game: Ooompah Loompahs. And once they're hunted to extinction, the whole ecosystem will collapse. Who will make our candy? With whom will we fill our floating offshore brothels? Whose bones will we grind into fertilizer? Whose skulls will we use for bongs? Did we learn nothing from Easter Island and the giant monolithic heads that seem to cry to the skies, "Forgive us for slaying all the Oompah Loompahs, O Mighty One! Have mercy on us!"
If only ONE Oompah Loompah survives, the Council and the Mayor's footdragging on abiding by Heller and a few multimillion-dollar lawsuits will have been worth it.
I'd be okay if they expanded it to citywide, as long as they stuck to the 600 foot rule...and maybe throw in they have to be at least 600 feet from an ABC establishment as well....
I think the best place to sell guns would be Stich in DC in Georgetown. One can buy a nice revolver and pick up some colorful yarn to make a nice gun cozy.
Once the Council actually gets around to clearing up this dealer zoning problem, they're just going to just throw yet another pointless roadblock. Like mandating a 30-day waiting period for buying more than one bullet at a time. Or totally banning the sale of certain types of high-power ammunition, so you have to go out-of-town to order the only kind of bullet that can kill a charging Oompah Loompah: one made out of pure nougat. Meanwhile, the little orange bastards are running rampant in the streets, raping our fireplugs, defecating through our sunroofs, and using our squirrels as toiletpaper. And they wonder why we skin them alive and put their heads on pikes as a warning to others.
Yeah, I'd love to see a google maps mashup that identifies where in those areas a shop would not be within 600 feet of a residence, school, library, church or playground. I doubt such a place even exists.
Although I agree with Politburo: the right to bear arms (even if held individually) could not possibly include the right to buy the guns in a retail store. I agree that if the District made no effort to grant gun dealers licenses that it would be unconstitutional under Heller. But there is nothing in Heller that suggests the right to a brick and mortar gun store.
I think completely outlawing a store would probably be an infringement, but you're right that Heller is ambiguous on it (as it is on most everything). I don' think you should have to go outside the District to exercise your right.
But there is nothing in Heller that suggests the right to a brick and mortar gun store.
Well how about a clicks-and-order store? That way you could order your gun online from gunsamerica.com, have it transferred to that one licensed dealer downtown, who then has you fill out and process the paperwork. That way, you cut out the middle man and get your gun along with the sweet, sweet nougat bullets you need to keep your home safe from charging bull Oompah Loompahs.
Sweet nougat bullets are alright, if you just want to slow them down a bit. But if you really want to stop the green-haired menance cold, you got to go with hollow-point Raisinets.
Whatever you do, never shoot an Oompah Loompah with Sno-Caps. That white crap on the outside fragments. Worse than Malted Milk Balls.
Could we sell them on steam powered riverboats, kind of roll it into the notion that gambling is legal if it's on water that no one truly owns. It's like Zeno says, "the arrow you shoot is not the arrow that lands" or "you can't step in the same river twice" or "A reality in flux is a world where you can buy a gun on an Anacostia steamer."
Makes me want to write a post-modern version of Maverick starring John McCain as Maverick (of course) with the white house is actually his steamboat. Airforce One is a dirigible. Kind of a steampunk-meets-republican-government celebration.
I don't think you can even have riverboat gambling without derringers. It would be kinda like Huckleberry Finn without the "n" word. By which I mean "nippleclamps."
I hold in my hand a list of 23 Congressmen who would pay top dollar to have a woman give them an "Anacostia steamer."
how high do your aerospace rights go as a homeowner, or your mineral rights for that matter?
the DC council is so twentieth century, thinking only in 2 dimensions. what about putting a gun shop more than 600 feet underground, or on a floating platform more than 600 feet up? that way, you can put a store in every neighborhood without being too close to a school.
i really think the morlock mafia will have a (trigger) lock on the underground gun market—unless we act quickly and start up our own chain of underground junkpunchers gun outlets...
What about a Post-post-modern Maverick where all the people who played a Maverick appear? Sort of a time-travel, 5-Doctors thing? So you have Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, James Garner, John McCain...and they are trapped in a deep existential trap, perhaps an IKEA-themed casino, left only to confront the other that is self.
And what about gun rights for the temporally displaced? you people whose essential being is a fraction of a second out of sync with the rest of the world?
Where/when can they buy their guns?
A steampunk meets republican government meets JW's Firefly version of DC would so rock. I could get behind that.
I could get behind Inarra Serra's behind. Which would make it her front. Which would be even better.
What's the logic here - If I buy a gun, my trigger finger will itch so badly that I will use it in the immediate vicinity, possibly shooting up churches and schools? Please. I'd rather have a gun store next to my house than a 7-11 that sells blunts all night long.
For you zoning nuts, the regulations state that gun shops are only allowed in C-3, C-4, and C-5 zoned districts,
Speaking of plastique, where's a brotha gotta go to get hisself some C4? Because iffen I gotta hear my white muthaf***in neighbors kickin Radiohead one muthaf***in more time at 3am, I'm gonna blow 'at s**t all to hell.
sorry, monkey, i'll turn it down.
@ registeringsucks: I have no idea what the logic is. "I'm a poor hood who is going to go through the multiple trips to the MPD, buy a gun, then walk out the store, buy some Hurricane to drink and then go on a shooting rampage?" Has that happened? Ever? That or, kids, who can't even legally enter gun stores let alone buy guns, shouldn't be able to see people taking small black boxes out to their car?
I'm not sure what everyone else's experience has been, but everytime I've been in/near a gun store I've always felt like "This is exactly NOT the place some dude is going to come start some shit." It'd be like looking for trouble at a cop station!
Oh, and regarding other people saying there's no right to a brick and mortar store...would that be an OK way to dissuade freedom of religion for example? No churches can be built due to excessive zoning requirements? No, it's an infringement of the right designed simply to "save us from ourselves". It'd at least make sense if it was regarding shooting ranges--guns are loud as crap.
No churches can be built due to excessive zoning requirements?
Finally! Someone's talking some sense! Put that joint in writing, yo. I find your views intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. If you want to build a temple to your imaginary friend, fine, you forfeit your tax exempt status and your church gets taxed at the market rate times five.
Also, free Catholic school girl uniforms for some, free abortions for others.
And my craps aren't that loud, either. I've got the loosest craps on the strip.
"I could get behind Inarra Serra's behind."
That would definitely help compensate for the dystopia.