Photo used under a Creative Commons license with kcdsTM.

During a press conference this morning, Mayor Vince Gray revealed that the District’s gun drought will soon be broken: Charles Sykes, the only person registered to sell and transfer guns inside the District, will soon open up shop inside the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Department.

Sykes — who used to run CS Exchange at 1213 Good Hope Road SE — lost the lease on his store in April. The shuttering of CS Exchange, which opened on September 9, 2008 after the Supreme Court ruled the District’s handgun ban unconstitutional, left the District without a federally licensed gun dealer. (Sykes didn’t sell guns at the shop, but he was charging customers $125 to register handguns purchsed legally elsewhere inside the District.) Given the city’s strict zoning restrictions on gun dealers, city leaders began working hard to help find Sykes a new location, and settled on MPD headquarters. The D.C. Zoning Commission recently passed a rule allowing for firearm sales inside “District law enforcement or licensing agency” buildings.

Sykes will pay the city $100 a month for the space inside 300 Indiana Avenue NW — rather convenient for gun owners, since that’s where handgun registrations are processed anyway. As part of the rent deal, a lawsuit which had been filed accusing the District of violating the Second Amendment while Sykes was looking for a new location has been dismissed.