Just as Councilmember Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) proposed in October that restrictions on gun stores be eased, today he introduced legislation that would make the process of buying and registering a gun simpler for District residents. more ›

The District might be readying to register handguns inside its police headquarters, but those looking to legally get a hold of a semi-automatic rifle are still out of luck. more ›

Our sister site Gothamist brought our attention to the above map, created by Very Small Array, which labels each American state and the District of Columbia with the first autocomplete suggestion that popped up when the name of the jurisdiction was entered into Google last Friday night. more ›

The Supreme Court ruled today that Second Amendment protections extend to the states, finally extending the 2008 Heller decision that knocked down the District's three-decade-old gun ban. more ›

Is there a parliamentary term for beating a dead horse? Because if there is, the Senate appears to be doing just that. more ›

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina has ruled that the District of Columbia's post-Heller gun laws are indeed constitutional. more ›

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. more ›

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). more ›

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.) more ›