Results tagged “gunlaws”

As we return from the Fourth of July weekend, many of us are still recovering from celebrating America's independence and a system of representative government that guarantees that each and every citizen can have a voice in the policies and decisions that affect their lives. But of course, no Independence Day is free from irony for District residents -- while one of the rallying cries of the movement for independence from Britain was a lack of representation (while being taxed, no less), the 600,000 or so of us in D.C. still live with that reality, some two centuries later. Somewhere, the Brits are smirking.

It was on this day last year that the District's longstanding and long controversial ban on handguns was upended, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such blanket prohibitions were an unconstitutional infringement of the Second Amendment. More broadly, though, what had been the country's strictest regulations of a specific type of gun gave the majority of the court the chance to rule that the Second Amendment granted an individual, not collective right to gun ownership. And it was all because of a District resident whose name now graces the case file: Dick Heller.

An extra-marital affair involving a Washington politico isn't anything surprising these days. But when it involves the possible blackmail of a Promise Keeper senator who is no friend of the District, it's hard for us not to feel just the tiniest bit smug. Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) admitted yesterday in a hastily arranged press conference that he had cheated on his wife with a campaign staffer, jumping to admit to the infidelity over fears that the staffer's husband -- who worked as an aide to Ensign -- was seeking to blackmail him. In the wake of the news Ensign today resigned his position as Chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee.

Tragedies offer both moments of reflection and political posturing. Yesterday's shooting at the Holocaust Museum has already produced some of the latter with regards to the District's gun laws.

First the issue of guns came to haunt the D.C. voting rights bill, now it seems to be haunting other pieces of legislation Democrats are looking to pass. The Politico reports today that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has all but thrown in the towel, admitting that Republicans have effectively used amendments related to guns to either stall legislation or force conservative Democrats into tough votes. While the voting rights bill has been stuck due to an amendment that would gut the District's gun laws, legislation on credit cards will likely pass with an amendment attached that will expand gun carrying rights in national parks. Hoyer still claims that the D.C. voting rights bill will pass "one way or another."

An amendment attached to the D.C. House Voting Rights Act that would gut the District's gun laws has remained a point of heated debate in recent weeks, and today Police Chief Cathy Lanier heads to the Hill to testify on the dangers it would pose to the city. She is scheduled to join a number of security officials in a hearing titled, "Disaster Capacity in the National Capital Region: Experiences, Capabilities, and Weaknesses," being held by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management. The subcommittee is chaired by D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and is meeting as of 10 a.m. in Room 2167 of the Rayburn House Office Building. You can also watch a live web cast of the hearing.

This morning we reported on comments made by Mayor Adrian Fenty in which he argued that city residents may just have to deal with the gun law-gutting amendment if they want a voting seat in the House. D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton was quick to register her displeasure with Fenty's comments; Council member Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) has now followed with a statement of his own. The chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee argues that the amendment would allow violent offenders to obtain guns, result in the proliferation of assault-style weapons, limit the police department's ability to arrest chronic gun offenders and make it difficult for police to trace guns used in crimes. “Residents of the District of Columbia should not have to choose between representation and public safety," he says. “Now more than ever, we must stand united for a vote in Congress, and against this reckless assault on our safety. The Council and the region have called for a clean bill. There must be no gun amendment.”

Another week of waiting, it seems. According to voting rights activists we spoke to, legislation to grant the District a voting seat in the House is still stalled as congressional advocates figure out how to remove an amendment that would gut the city's gun laws. The amendment, which made its way into a Senate version of the legislation courtesy of Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), is widely supported in the House while being roundly opposed by local officials. National coalitions and organizations that support the voting rights legislation, like the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, NAACP and AFL-CIO, have promised to apply pressure to members of Congress by scoring a vote on whether the gun amendment stays or goes. If you remember, the amendment ended up in play in the House version of the bill to begin with when the NRA threatened to score the same vote. There's apparently a lot of score-keeping going on on the Hill these days.

Remember how last summer's Supreme Court ruling on the District's handgun ban promised to upend regulations and restrictions on gun ownership across the country? It doesn't seem to be happening. The New York Times reported yesterday that of 80 cases that have come before lower federal courts in Heller's wake, few have actually resulted in the overturning of federal laws limiting gun ownership, transport and use. (The article cites the case of an East St. Louis, Ill. man who tried to argue that the Second Amendment protected his right to carry a gun while selling drugs. Predictably, a court disagreed.) Of course, state and local laws have yet to be tested, but some scholars guess that not much will come from those challenges either. It remains to be seen how pending lawsuits against the District's new regulations stand up to post-Heller scrutiny (not to mention a meddling Congress).

We missed this little tidbit this morning -- the two House members who have offered D.C. gun law-gutting amendments to the D.C. Voting Rights Act have been outed. The Washington Times today identified Rep. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) and Rep. Steve King (R-IA) as the culprits. We've long known that Texans seems to have it in for the District (Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Rep. Louie Gohmert and Rep. Lamar Smith are longstanding D.C. foes), but now we have to add Nevada to that list? Remember that it was just this morning that we wrote about what Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) thinks about our struggle for voting rights (he doesn't, really). We also couldn't help but notice that Rep. Heller shares the same last name and has the same number of letters in his first name as the plaintiff who got the Supreme Court to knock down the District's handgun ban. Freaky.

Yesterday was surely a day of celebration for those of us who have been fighting for D.C. voting rights. The mere fact that the Senate voted to approve the D.C. House Voting Rights Act is a huge step in what has long been a consistently frustrating battle for equal rights for the District of Columbia.

One relatively early vote from yesterday's marathon final D.C. Council legislative session of the year was the approval of a number of changes to the District's ever-evolving gun laws. (Quick aside: Must the Council always pull out these last-minute legislate-a-thons? They often make for bad laws, not to mention force local scribes to try to fit far too many votes into far too few words. And now back to our regularly scheduled post.)