Results tagged “handgunban”

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?

On Wednesday WTOP's Mark Segraves reported that handgun sales will officially start in the District next Tuesday, Sept. 9 — just in time for primary election day! There are still no gun stores inside city limits, so the only guns that have been registered in D.C. so far were either registered under the amnesty program or were being stored out-of-state, since federal law requires that new gun purchases must either originate from or be transferred to a dealer in the state where gun will be registered. Charles Sykes, the only licensed D.C. firearms dealer who so far has announced he will transfer out of state gun sales to the District, told WTOP his office in Anacostia will be open for business on Tuesday. Sykes said he plans to charge a $125 fee per transfer.

The Post caught Dick Heller, original plaintiff in the U.S. Supreme Court court case that eventually made it legal for D.C. residents to own handguns for personal security, picking up his handgun registration certificate this morning.

Dick Heller's quick to the draw with his legal filings.

They say that it's good to never give up, but would someone send Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) a memo telling him that sometimes it's cool to throw in the towel?

Via the WSJ Law Blog, click here to download a PDF from the Smith & Wesson company web site announcing their intention to create a commemorative revolver laser engraved with the words "D.C. vs. Heller" on a scale of justice, tipped toward Heller.

As part of the project, an engraved Smith & Wesson Model 442 revolver will be presented to each of the six plaintiffs - Shelly Parker, Tom Palmer, Gillian St. Lawrence, Tracey Ambeau, George Lyon and Dick Heller - for their key roles in working to protect the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Smith & Wesson will make the commemorative revolver available for consumer purchase in Fall 2008 and will direct a portion of the proceeds to the Second Amendment Foundation to acknowledge the organization's pivotal role in the Heller case and its ongoing efforts to preserve the Second Amendment rights of U.S. citizens.

Over at HuffPost, Josh Sugarman makes the argument that Smith & Wesson is thumbing its nose at police departments with this announcement, since the gun ban was strongly supported by the MPD, and the company is well known for manufacturing a "revolver that can penetrate the body armor worn by law enforcement."

The Examiner catches up with Amy McVey, the first person to legally register a handgun in the District of Columbia since the Heller decision. That we didn't know until today that McVey successfully registered a gun is embarrassing for local reporters: apparently all the journalists waiting around on Thursday to see who would be the first to register a gun didn't notice McVey walking in to the registration office because she's a woman.

Great report from Dave Weigel over at Reason's Hit and Run blog on original D.C. handgun ban plaintiff Dick Heller's return to the District's gun registration office this morning. What happened yesterday was Heller showed up to register his 1911 single-action Colt .22 revolver, but he didn't bring it with him, and the police told him to come back with the gun.

If you agree with some of the commenters in the Roundup that WUSA's account of Dick Heller's experience at the District's gun registration office this morning was a little confusing, seems like you're probably right. D.C. Wire has what appears to be a better report that Heller didn't even bring a gun with him to register this morning, but instead expressed "his frustrations with the District's continued ban on semiautomatic weapons." What's up with that weird report, WUSA?

Mayor Adrian Fenty and the D.C. Council, along with Attorney General Peter Nickles and Police Chief Cathy Lanier, announced the details of early legislation that will regulate the registration and storage of handguns in post-Heller 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.

So there we have it -- the U.S. Supreme Court finally issued a definitive ruling on what the Second Amendment actually means. But what will it mean for the District in a more practical sense? For now, not much.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled this morning to uphold an appellate ruling that says the District of Columbia's 32-year-old handgun ban is unconstitutional.

It's been a long four months for both anti- and pro-gun advocates since the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments concerning the constitutionality of the District's infamously restrictive gun laws. And though the court is coming to the end of their session, we're all still waiting to see what's to come of the District's gun laws.

Walter Dellinger has argued before the Supreme Court on many occasions. In fact, according to a Post profile of the lawyer and academic, he's been in front of the nine justices often this year -- three times in the last four weeks. And while yesterday's argument may have been one of the most historic, it probably wasn't the most fun.

Since we couldn't get into the Supreme Court itself and hardly consider ourselves legal experts, we're going to...link to someone else that's live-blogging the audio proceedings.

A little more than a year separates when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Circuit first called the District's gun laws unconstitutional, and the final test those laws will face today before the U.S. Supreme Court. And in a matter of hours, the case will have been heard, the audio of the proceedings will be released, and months of conjecture will fill the space until the justices actually issue a final ruling.

With the March 18 hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the D.C. gun ban fast approaching, there's been a lot of news we've missed.

...historically Congress has interpreted the Second Amendment as recognizing the right of law-abiding individuals to keep and bear arms. This Court should give due deference to the repeated findings over different historical epochs by Congress, a co-equal branch of government, that the Amendment guarantees the personal right to possess firearms. The District’s prohibitions on mere possession by law-abiding persons of handguns in the home and having usable firearms there are unreasonable per se.

One of the few Republicans in the Senate not to sign, though, was Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), who withheld his signature because he believes that this is a matter of home rule:

"While the District of Columbia is not a state, it operates under a framework of laws enacted by the Congress which gives its elected leaders the duty to advocate the positions and interest of its citizens before the federal judiciary."

While we've struggled with whether or not the District's restrictive gun laws should be re-tooled, we've consistently opposed Congress's repeated attempts to impose or overturn local laws. And when it comes to the city's gun laws, they've made overturning them an almost annual tradition. (Let's not forget that last year's House vote on D.C. voting rights legislation was held up when a crafty Texas representative tried to insert language nullifying the city's gun laws.)

When District lawyers face the Supreme Court in March to defend the city's ban on handguns, they'll not only be fighting to save a local policy -- they'll also be asking the court to decide whether the Second Amendment protects gun ownership in an individual capacity or only under the auspices of a state-run militia.