Morning Roundup: Goodbye, Abe Edition
D.C. Police Seek Suspect in Series of Bank Robberies
Suspect in 9-Year-Old's Murder Found Dead in D.C. Jail
Photo of the Day: November 25, 2009
Ballou HS Rocks the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
The Hill's Mike Soraghan is reporting that the D.C. House Voting Rights Act, known as H.R. 157, has been pulled from tomorrow’s House legislative calendar due to concerns over a controversial amendment added to the Senate's version of the bill that would repeal the District's gun laws.
The House version of the voting rights bill had been expected to come up for a vote on Wednesday. The House Rules Committee is still scheduled to meet on the bill to prep it for a vote at 5 p.m. today.
House Republicans are eager to add their own gun law amendment to the match the Senate, and there is apparently now concern on the part of House Democrats that the gun amendment could succeed. Negotiations on the bill are ongoing.
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ok, democrats, here's how you play this one.
you want a gun amendment, republicans? make them vote on an amendment that will arm EVERY SINGLE REGISTERED ADULT IN THE CITY. yep, when we get our driver's license, or voter registration card, we get issued a glock, tec-9, or an AK-47.
the kicker is that the feds pay for it.
that's right, NRA. a chicken in every pot, and a gun in every hand. can't vote against that, right?
(i mean, hell, if we're going to lard the bill down with unrelated amendments, let's really lard the damn thing down!)
Bitter, hostile, and a little crazy. I like it.
Geez, wouldn't that be wonderful?
Works for me. It brought crime down to about zero in one Georgia town when the local government mandated everyone to have a gun.
That town is possibly the world's biggest strawman.
The law was never enforced, and a study showed an increase in crime.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-helmke/mandating-guns_b_39450.html
Or how about putting language in the gun amendment that eliminates metal detectors at the Capitol? Always seems odd to me to see pro-gun legislation for DC coming from Congress, which screens visitors for guns.
Are guns inherently good or aren't they?
there you go, anonindc, that's creative logic!
Mandatory civics lessons so that everyone can locate where in the Constitution it says taxation without representation is illegal.
Mandatory reading comprehension lessons so everyone who reads the Constitution understands that my house is neither a Fort, Magazine, Arsenal, Dockyard, or other needful Building.
PARTY AT YOUR HOUSE!
If I may...I'm a democrat who wants the amendment. As to your guns-required-for-all idea, if they passed background checks, what's the difference? I'd be fine giving guns to most people I know who would likely put them under their beds and never think about them again. On the other hand, we certainly give out drivers licenses to cabbies who seem to WANT to kill cyclists.
Regarding metal detectors--I get that you're not serious, but that idea doesn't make any sense. Unless you were to put metal detectors around all of DC, you're never going to know who has what weapon, so might as well let the good guys have them. In gov buildings you can ACTUALLY make them safe and disarm everyone, whereas in society, you cannot make everyone safe (from guns) without a police state.
I guess a police state would at least have a rep and two senators.
I'm planning on visiting China later this year--I'll let you know if it's worth it.
Take the vote you morons!! Look, even the gun banners gotta understand that they have no factual basis for their arguments and it is just "don't tell us what to do" posturing. The "blood in the streets" scenario has never, and i mean NEVER played out in cities where they eased up on gun restrictions-be it Miami, Columbus or Arlington. (same with the AWB expiration-it didn't happen).
Besides, many of the current gun rules will likely get knocked down court. Yes, we should make our own rules, but come on, get over yourselves, suck it up and get the vote.
03-03-09
It seems quite apparent that the House Democrats do NOT want DC to be represented in Congress in any fashion. Otherwise they would have finally shown respect to the rights of law-abiding citizens in the District and restored their 2nd Amendment rights. But then again, this administration is the most anti-gun in history, more so than Clinton's.
Please provide a comparative discussion of gun policy in all administrations in U.S. history with particular attention to the anti-gun policy positions staked out by the current young administration. It would also help if you could quantify these policy positions on a spectrum, the norms of which you are free to establish with the appropriate empirical basis. You can't because your statement is the reeking thought product of your rectum? Oh.
Slam! Someone just got served.
I wouldn't forget that the previous bill to repeal DC's firearms laws passed easily in the Democratic House. Ease up on the Obama Administration, they haven't done anything regarding guns yet. I think they're smart enough not to, Holder comments aside.
I have a serious question about this. Why are Dems so afraid to vote on gun issues? If they think their constituents would vote them out of office if they took an anti-gun stance, then shouldn't they be rethinking their position? Who are they afraid of pissing off? Pelosi?
I've been saying for a while that the Democratic party leadership is way out of sync with regular party members on this issue, and this move just seems to confirm it.
Time to stop being a bunch of chickens. If you are pro-gun control, stand up and say it. Don't hide behind the House rules.
While I agree, I imagine they feel like they're dammed if they do, damned if they don't. If you sit at the back of the class, the NRA doesn't make TV ads against you. If you come off as pro-gun, there are some Democrats who won't bother to show up and vote or will make a big deal out of it in the primary, as Sen. Gillibrand is finding.
Personally I'd like to see more education of anti-gun people so that everyone who is pro-rights isn't automatically a shill for the NRA/gun lobby.
It’s just as well they’re pulling it. I’m sick of hypocritical Congressmen imposing policies on DC they would never push for their own Districts. DC voters should have the right to determine our own laws.
amen. can we have a logical discussion on DC gun laws here in DC, not having it given to us from on high by some guy from indiana?
i know there are a couple of you (timmeroo and hce, among others) who are looking forward to the end of restrictions on gun ownership. but you'd agree that the courts have ruled that it's constitutional to have reasonable limits on ownership, right?
and if the people of DC (by a pretty strong majority) agree that there should be limits on ownership, we should be allowed to make that determination ourselves, right? haven't our leaders done that? you feel that the rules are too restrictive, but is that just opinion?
IMGoph,
Absolutely, but their is nothing reasonable about DC's restrictions. I think background check are reasonable. I think restrictions on felons are reasonable. Handgun training in order to own a shotgun? No. Banning a class of firearms that were used in less than 3% of all homicides? No. 4 trips to MPD and $260 to exercise my right? No.
timmeroo, fellow dem gun owner here. Stop by Tune Inn some Saturday afternoon and I'll buy you a beer. You'll find a few of us there.
Exactly. If there are problems with the laws passed by the council, then lobby the council members to change them, or vote them out. That's the way it works everywhere else. Getting Congress to overrule our local elected officials and say that we can't pass any gun laws at all is not the way to go, and shows a contempt for the idea of democracy in DC that's inconsistent with supporting us having a vote in the House.
And aside from the issus of local autonomy, it's ridiculous to maintain that one-size-fits-all federal gun laws are all that's needed for a city. Rural and urban areas are very different environments when it comes to guns, and the relaxed laws that are appropriate for one are inappropriate for the other.
(I'm hoping this actually shows up. I submitted a similar comment this afternoon but it disappeared into the ether.)
Thank you. I won't presume to tell West Virginians that they should ban shotguns, so they should let us in DC decide if we want our residents to register their guns. Perhaps banning a class of firearms used in 3% of homicides sounds unreasonable to some, but following that logic, wouldn't banning a class of firearms used in a majority of homicides be reasonable (albeit unconstitutional according to the current court)? I don't know what factors into the registration fee (DC officials do have a reputation of using creative means to bring in revenue), but like KCinDC points out, this should be addressed by our elected Councilmen and not Congressmen we have no rights to elect nor defeat.
Weird about your comment. Regarding the laws, I agree, that is how it should work. Believe me, I wasted a lot of time testifying before the Council and writing letters trying to convince them that they were not following the Supreme Court ruling, telling them they will be challenged. They went ahead, were challenged legally, saw the House vote, and rewrote the law, but actually made it more time consuming/restrictive for citizens.
What Congress is doing is legal, just not entirely fair. However, they are saving you money the city would have to pay a lawyer to lose while defending their onerous laws.
As for the one-size-fits-all...I'd prefer one Constitution please. We do have that Supreme Court for a reason.
We do have one Constitution. That doesn't mean that gun laws should be identical in every jurisdiction, just that they should all be constitutional.
It is absolutely not the case that the Supreme Court ruled that DC could not have any gun laws more strict than the federal ones. Scalia even gave specific examples of restrictions that would be constitutional. Therefore wanting Congress to repeal DC's laws and strip the council of any authority to pass new ones goes far beyond simple desire to uphold the Constitution.
I've never said that congressional meddling in DC's local laws is illegal or unconstitutional, just that it's immoral, undemocratic, and a violation of the whole point of the DC Voting Rights Act.
That comment is nothing more than a thoughtless slogan. If DC wanted to pass a law that black people have to sit in the back of the bus, do you think Congress should just sit there and say, well it's your city? How about if DC wanted put up signs saying "Catholics not welcome?" Or let's say the District decided that hospitals here could not perform an abortion unless the mother never to be took five hours of training in ethics, took a safety test, and registered their abortion decision with District officials. Sure after several years of court battles these laws would be struck down, but in the meantime, the city and by analogy the federal government which is resident here would be considered a laughing stock. Oh wait, they are already. Never mind. Congress has the ultimate constitutional duty to govern the District. If the District is acting in violation of the Constitution, then it is Congress's duty to intervene.
I would not support a law banning Catholics, but would for Unitarians. We must keep them and their dangerous ways out of the city!
I want a Representative in DC. As I mentioned in an earlier one of my blog posts, I fully expect anything passed to face legal challenges.
A thought to discuss: if the same legislation that grants DC a Representative also regulates it as an entity with clearly less-than-statehood status, wouldn't that make it harder to defend granting us a type of representation available to states?
I wonder if this delay may actually lead to a more defensible way for us to finally have representation... I certainly hope so.
you've been pimping your blog here on dcist quite a bit lately, upton.
sorry, IMGoph, I'm not here with the express intent to pimp the blog - just to see what other people are saying on the topics I've been writing about, see if my contributions are good enough to get a comment or two over there.
It's new, so I want to be as involved in the community as possible.
Exactly, DC's laws should be constitutional at a minimum. Surprise, I don't think some portions of DC's law are constitutional. The rest, aside from the Child Access Protection/Prevention law, is just bad policy. It's been said time and again, but jeez..."shall not be infringed." Imagine several trips to the cop station, fingerprinting, about $260 in fees, training, re-registration every 3 years, etc to own a computer capable of posting on DCist.
I don't want anyone interfering with our local laws, provided we play by the rules, i.e. the Constitution. Please, require bike helmets, but don't try to dilute the Bill of Rights.
I'm sorry but I just don't think voting rights are worth being marooned by gun-hugging republicans into reversing our previous convictions on gun control. Another perfect example of how republicans operate, dirty tactics and under-handed deceptiveness...if you want to be a big boy and vote, you have to live by my rules--so sayeth congress. Ultimately what this bill now says is that DC will really never be independant and equal to the states, because we can have either a vote or we can have the ability to make our own laws...but obviously daddy congress doesn't feel we can have both! Thus, we're still being bumf**k'd by those sleezy republicans on the hill no matter how it ends. But again, I'd gladly give up having a voting member (at least for now) just to keep gun control on the books and get as few guns out there as possible!!! I can't for the life of me understand why people think that guns will protect them--the premise only works if you're lucky to be the first one to pull the trigger, since most criminals are far more versed with guns than the average joe, chances are more likely that they'll shoot first. What's even more likely though is the types of "accidental dischrages" or crimes of passion that plague the "law-abiding" gun carrier (did anyone else read the story about the Starbucks employee who shot his own leg?!) -- so now tell me again how all of us having guns makes us safer?
"Ultimately what this bill now says is that DC will really never be independant and equal to the states, because we can have either a vote or we can have the ability to make our own laws"
This is exactly what I meant in my previous comment! I gave it a longer treatment today, in the blog.