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The final word on the District’s strict concealed carry handgun law will remain with a federal appeals court, because the city isn’t appealing the decision to the Supreme Court, officials announced today.

That means that residents no longer need a “good reason” to obtain a permit for carrying a concealed handgun, a measure that a panel of three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit deemed unconstitutional in a 2-1 decision in July. It was among the strictest gun laws in country.

While the law’s supporters, which include among them the city’s leaders, maintain that it doesn’t run afoul of the Second Amendment, “we must reckon with the fact that an adverse decision by the Supreme Court could have wide-ranging negative effects not just on District residents, but on the country as a whole,” said D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine.

While Racine’s legal argument hinged upon the city’s “particular public-safety challenges while preserving the ability of its most vulnerable citizens to publicly carry a handgun when there is a special self-defense need,” other jurisdictions with similar laws on the books, like Maryland, New Jersey, and New York, could find their laws rolled back if the Supreme Court did not decide in the District’s favor.

Racine says that elected officials from around the country called his office and implored that he not appeal the law. He added that he reached the decision alongside Mayor Muriel Bowser, D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson, and D.C. Council Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety Chair Charles Allen, among other officials, and they pledged to continue to work on the issue of gun violence.

This isn’t D.C.’s first clash with the courts when it comes to gun laws. The now-blocked “good reason” law was itself created in response to a 2014 court ruling that D.C.’s complete ban on the carrying of handguns in public was unconstitutional, based on the Supreme Court decision District of Columbia v. Heller, which enshrined that the Second Amendment included the right of individuals to possess and carry firearms.

It’s precisely a far-reaching Supreme Court decision like Heller that officials fear in taking their argument to the highest court in the land.

On Tuesday, Mendelson, who crafted the “good reason” legislation, said that “personally, I think it was a bad decision and we ought to appeal it.”

But as of today, he said in a statement that he agreed “with the consensus of city leaders that it is in the best interest of the District not to appeal to the High Court,” adding that “fundamental aspects of the District’s laws regulating guns remain intact.”

While “good reason” may be gone, there are still other rules in place, including restrictions on who can obtain a permit and where people may carry their permitted guns.

From July 2014 through September 30 of this year, D.C. police received 668 concealed carry applications for hand guns and long guns, and denied 444 of them. Of that, 425 were denied under the “good reason” clause, according to MPD data. Now, those 425 people can reapply for concealed carry permits and their fees will be waived, MPD spokesperson Karimah Bilal says.

Previously:
After Blocking D.C.’s ‘Good Reason’ Gun Law, Circuit Court Denies Another Look
D.C. Wants Court To Take Another Look At Its ‘Good Reason’ Handgun Law
Appeals Court Blocks D.C.’s ‘Good Reason’ Handgun Law
Court: D.C. Can Enforce Its ‘Good Reason’ Concealed-Carry Law
Judge Rules Against D.C.’s Gun Law … Again
Council Approves Permanent Version Of Concealed Carry Bill