Notwithstanding the adverse ruling the District of Columbia received from the U. S. Supreme Court for its unconstitutional ordinance restricting the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms, bureaucrats in the Federal City continue their efforts to gnaw away at the Second Amendment.
That amendment is elegant in its simplicity: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Nevertheless, it took over 150 pages for the Court to expound upon its meaning. (Surely the justices have too much time on their hands!) Bottom line: "...the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense." The Court also directed the District to allow the complainant, Mr. Heller, to register his firearm and to issue him a permit to carry it in his home.
The Court ruled that the right to bear arms is an individual one and that it includes the right to use handguns—the weapon of choice for most people—for self-defense. The Court recognized that the right to self-defense is inherent, and it is in the home where the "need for defense of self, family, and property is the most acute."
While D.C. is no longer the "murder capital" of the country, it is still seventh on the 2006 list of major cities with the highest murder rates in the United States. Nightly newscasts catalog the long list of violent acts that occur in the city—home invasions, carjackings, gang-related violence, drug deals gone bad, muggings of the elderly, the shooting of children—the list goes on and on. At the time of this writing, one metropolitan neighborhood has been cordoned off, with limited access in and out, because of the murder of a 13 year old boy who was in the city visiting his ailing grandmother.
Washington, D.C. is Exhibit A to the proposition that "where guns are outlawed, only the outlaws have guns."
You would think that Mayor Adrian Fenty would want to ensure that the District's residents would have the means to protect themselves. After all, as professor Gary Kleck
Ken Connor
Ken Connor is Chairman of the
Center for a Just Society in Washington, DC.
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