Results tagged “handguns”

With all the legislative back and forth over the District's evolving gun regulations since the Supreme Court deemed the city's handgun ban unconstitutional last summer, it's understandable that we'd all be confused as to how one goes about registering a gun. The Metropolitan Police Department has published a guide that attempts to clear up the process.

Late last week the Examiner delved into one of the remaining unanswered questions standing between D.C. residents and the handguns they are now allowed to have -- the stores where they can buy them.

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.)

Ever since the Supreme Court ordered the District to allow gun ownership, we've heard any number of proposed regulations on how to get them, where to store them, when to use them and how to carry them. Today in the Post one reader proposes something a little different -- gun liability insurance:

The D.C. Council should require all gun owners in the District to obtain gun liability insurance. The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of an individual right to own firearms, but it did not say that jurisdictions cannot regulate guns in a way similar to how cars are regulated. A study by P.J. Cook and Jens Ludwig, professors at Duke University and the University of Chicago, shows the direct and indirect costs of handgun violence exceed $100 billion a year.

Continue reading "Should District Gun Owners Need Insurance?"

Hoping to head off an effort by Congress that would gut the District's new gun regulations completely, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced yesterday that he was proposing a number of changes to mollify pro-gun activists unhappy with the current restrictions.