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D.C.’s request for a judge to reconsider his ruling overturning the city’s ban on carrying handguns in public is “frivolous,” according to the plaintiffs.
In late August, the city’s attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Frederick Scullin Jr. to review his ruling as he “failed to conduct the analysis required by controlling law, and relied on flawed, non-controlling decisions from other jurisdictions.”
“As this Court already explained,” attorneys for the plaintiffs said in papers filed today, “'[i]n light of Heller, McDonald, and their progeny, there is no longer any basis on which this Court can conclude that the District of Columbia’s total ban on the public carrying of ready- to-use handguns outside the home is constitutional under any level of scrutiny.’ Indeed, Defendants are unlikely to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits of any appeal.”
In late July, a judge gave D.C. 90 days to either appeal or comply with the ruling. The motion for reconsideration was filed in late August, and the 90-day deadline expires on October 22.
“This Court could not in any event consider evidence as to the desirability of banning the carrying of handguns, because it simply does not matter whether the Second Amendment makes for good policy. It’s the law,” attorneys for the plaintiffs said today. “There are other forums in which to argue about whether there should be a right to bear arms. It is not the Court’s job to determine whether the Framers acted properly in ratifying the Second Amendment.”
Not long ago, the District of Columbia made the same arguments with respect to the right to“keep” handguns—that the city is different, that handguns are too dangerous to keep, that the social costs of handgun possession outweigh any benefits, etc. and so on. The Supreme Court’s answer then is relevant now: “The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all.”
It is, however, “really worth insisting” that the Defendants cease resisting the constitutional reality, accept the fact that the Constitution does not always reflect their favorite policies, and stop interfering with the people’s enjoyment of fundamental rights.
See the latest motion, via the National Law Journal’s Zoe Tillman, below.
