does DC even have gun shops? How do they buy guns?
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Tinstafl
Member
No, the local news brought up the fact that there are three FFLs in the city and they sell to the government and would need permits and a storefront. Of Course this is the same lady who said an M16 allows you to pull the trigger once and spray hundreds of bullets without reloading.
Now there is a local gun shop owner who told me there are none in DC too and I believe him. He said it would be 6 months ot a year to get set up there.
Now there is a local gun shop owner who told me there are none in DC too and I believe him. He said it would be 6 months ot a year to get set up there.
I wouldnt buy from a gunshop in DC even if there was one that started up and if I lived in DC. Sales tax is way high and they would end up selling at or above MSRP to compensate for the high real estate, so this is a victory for gun owners elsewhere, not really for DC gun/future gun owners. That's how I see it.
Schleprok62
Member
Wow... so, how would a DC resident acquire a firearm legally if you can't buy one from a neighboring state??? (if I'm off base here... I apologize...)
yeah that's my point....DC gun owners didnt win anything (except for the very few who kept their handguns throughout all these years and also new gunowners who moved to DC) but this was a victory for everyone else.... I doubt any gun shops will open up in DC. The city will make it a hassle for gun shops to operate.
rantingredneck
Member
First person that gets their permit in DC should go over to the VPC and tell them, "Yes, I'd like to order a Glock 17 through your FFL."
VPC: "I'm sorry we don't sell guns"
"Then why do you show up on a list of DC FFL's?"
VPC: "Uh.....Uh....Uh...."
VPC: "I'm sorry we don't sell guns"
"Then why do you show up on a list of DC FFL's?"
VPC: "Uh.....Uh....Uh...."
Tinstafl
Member
There is always the possibility of a private sale from someone who lives in another state or even a gift to a family member. Also the FFLs that are there may decide to open up and try it for a while.
AntiqueCollector
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c&r ffl
fairfax1
Member
Here is the kind of roadblock that DC will continue to put up...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/25/AR2008062502402_pf.html
D.C.'s Handgun Ban Hits Unintended Targets
By Marc Fisher
Thursday, June 26, 2008; B01
Allan Lucas discovered his passion nearly four decades ago, in the Marine Corps. Assigned to target practice at the range, he suddenly realized that everyone else had stopped shooting their M-14s. "It gets real quiet and I'm the only one shooting, and the general and the corporal are watching me," Lucas remembers. "I'm building a little circle of holes around the bull's-eye."
During a 30-plus-year career with D.C. police, the U.S. Marshals office and the D.C. corrections department, Lucas taught hundreds of officers how to handle and shoot firearms. A fourth-generation Washingtonian, he had the bad luck to practice his skill and love in a city that since 1976 has maintained the nation's strictest gun ban, which prohibits handgun ownership.
No one ever accused the government of being terribly logical, but get this: The District, throughout the three decades of its gun ban, has continued to license firearms instructors -- Lucas is one of about 60 licensees -- but has declined to let them open businesses where they could use their licenses.
Since he retired from the police force, Lucas has trained security guards and other licensed gun owners who work in the District. To do so, he must take his clients, and their tax dollars, to ranges in Chantilly or Upper Marlboro. "How can they license me to do a job that they then don't allow me to do?" Lucas asks.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling today that could very well overthrow the District's gun ban, requiring the city to create a new regulatory scheme for guns -- one that could determine which ones could be owned, whether and where they could be sold and what kind of gun-related businesses could open up in the city.
Even before they knew the contours of the ruling, people such as Lucas stood ready and raring to go. But they will probably face months of confusion, as the District tries to figure out just what it can prohibit and what it must allow.
For the past three years, Lucas has been trying to win permission to conduct his business in the city where he lives and works. Even with the gun ban, the District has licensed not only firearms instructors but also a couple of gun dealers. Those dealers sold their wares to the more than 10,000 private security officers and law enforcement personnel who are allowed to carry weapons in the city and who must be recertified periodically as proficient at shooting.
Before the ban, there were about 40 ranges throughout the city, some run by federal and local agencies and some in private hands. The National Rifle Association had one in its old 16th Street office building, Howard University had one for its shooting team, and a few homes in upper Northwest sported their own, just for fun. Both the president's house and the vice president's had ranges.
But when Lucas went to D.C. regulators to seek permission to open an indoor range on V Street SE in Anacostia, he was trapped in a Catch-22: To open such a business, you'd need a site zoned for a range. And there is no zoning category that allows a range.
Lucas found a soundproof, bulletproof, trailer-size range that could be delivered for less than $400,000. He sent his proposal to the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. That launched an odyssey that has included 21 visits to the DCRA, five visits with D.C. Council members and other politicians, two trips to the police office that regulates gun sales and an e-mail trail involving at least a dozen city bureaucrats.
At one point, a zoning administrator told Lucas that the problem was that it had been so long since the city had licensed a gun range that it simply didn't know how to do so.
"They deny me, but they don't know why they're denying me," Lucas says. "The bottom line is that they just don't like the idea of guns, and they're looking for ways to say no."
DCRA spokesman Michael Rupert says the problem is that "this is not a zoning issue, because the range he's proposing is a mobile unit. This is a police issue."
The police official in charge of gun control did not return my calls, but Lucas's case has been kicked back to the zoning world. A note to Lucas in April from the DCRA's deputy director advised him to seek a variance from the Board of Zoning Adjustment, an expensive process that Lucas is loath to undertake, given that no one in the DCRA or the police department has given him any reason to think his application might be approved.
The need for a range will soon become far more pressing, Lucas figures. "If you're going to let people have weapons, they're going to need a place to train," he says. "The worst thing you can do is legalize guns and have no way for people to learn how to handle them safely."
In the District, where neighborhood activists mount -- and often win -- crusades against the evils of restaurants, churches and schools, the prospects for gun shops and ranges seem mighty slim. But Lucas figures, probably correctly, that big-money interests will find a way to open gun businesses somewhere.
"And," he says, with a heavy sigh, "I'll still be the little guy standing on the corner."
Join me at noon today for a close look at the Supreme Court's ruling on the D.C. gun ban on "Potomac Confidential" athttp://www.washingtonpost.com/liveonline.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/25/AR2008062502402_pf.html
D.C.'s Handgun Ban Hits Unintended Targets
By Marc Fisher
Thursday, June 26, 2008; B01
Allan Lucas discovered his passion nearly four decades ago, in the Marine Corps. Assigned to target practice at the range, he suddenly realized that everyone else had stopped shooting their M-14s. "It gets real quiet and I'm the only one shooting, and the general and the corporal are watching me," Lucas remembers. "I'm building a little circle of holes around the bull's-eye."
During a 30-plus-year career with D.C. police, the U.S. Marshals office and the D.C. corrections department, Lucas taught hundreds of officers how to handle and shoot firearms. A fourth-generation Washingtonian, he had the bad luck to practice his skill and love in a city that since 1976 has maintained the nation's strictest gun ban, which prohibits handgun ownership.
No one ever accused the government of being terribly logical, but get this: The District, throughout the three decades of its gun ban, has continued to license firearms instructors -- Lucas is one of about 60 licensees -- but has declined to let them open businesses where they could use their licenses.
Since he retired from the police force, Lucas has trained security guards and other licensed gun owners who work in the District. To do so, he must take his clients, and their tax dollars, to ranges in Chantilly or Upper Marlboro. "How can they license me to do a job that they then don't allow me to do?" Lucas asks.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling today that could very well overthrow the District's gun ban, requiring the city to create a new regulatory scheme for guns -- one that could determine which ones could be owned, whether and where they could be sold and what kind of gun-related businesses could open up in the city.
Even before they knew the contours of the ruling, people such as Lucas stood ready and raring to go. But they will probably face months of confusion, as the District tries to figure out just what it can prohibit and what it must allow.
For the past three years, Lucas has been trying to win permission to conduct his business in the city where he lives and works. Even with the gun ban, the District has licensed not only firearms instructors but also a couple of gun dealers. Those dealers sold their wares to the more than 10,000 private security officers and law enforcement personnel who are allowed to carry weapons in the city and who must be recertified periodically as proficient at shooting.
Before the ban, there were about 40 ranges throughout the city, some run by federal and local agencies and some in private hands. The National Rifle Association had one in its old 16th Street office building, Howard University had one for its shooting team, and a few homes in upper Northwest sported their own, just for fun. Both the president's house and the vice president's had ranges.
But when Lucas went to D.C. regulators to seek permission to open an indoor range on V Street SE in Anacostia, he was trapped in a Catch-22: To open such a business, you'd need a site zoned for a range. And there is no zoning category that allows a range.
Lucas found a soundproof, bulletproof, trailer-size range that could be delivered for less than $400,000. He sent his proposal to the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. That launched an odyssey that has included 21 visits to the DCRA, five visits with D.C. Council members and other politicians, two trips to the police office that regulates gun sales and an e-mail trail involving at least a dozen city bureaucrats.
At one point, a zoning administrator told Lucas that the problem was that it had been so long since the city had licensed a gun range that it simply didn't know how to do so.
"They deny me, but they don't know why they're denying me," Lucas says. "The bottom line is that they just don't like the idea of guns, and they're looking for ways to say no."
DCRA spokesman Michael Rupert says the problem is that "this is not a zoning issue, because the range he's proposing is a mobile unit. This is a police issue."
The police official in charge of gun control did not return my calls, but Lucas's case has been kicked back to the zoning world. A note to Lucas in April from the DCRA's deputy director advised him to seek a variance from the Board of Zoning Adjustment, an expensive process that Lucas is loath to undertake, given that no one in the DCRA or the police department has given him any reason to think his application might be approved.
The need for a range will soon become far more pressing, Lucas figures. "If you're going to let people have weapons, they're going to need a place to train," he says. "The worst thing you can do is legalize guns and have no way for people to learn how to handle them safely."
In the District, where neighborhood activists mount -- and often win -- crusades against the evils of restaurants, churches and schools, the prospects for gun shops and ranges seem mighty slim. But Lucas figures, probably correctly, that big-money interests will find a way to open gun businesses somewhere.
"And," he says, with a heavy sigh, "I'll still be the little guy standing on the corner."
Join me at noon today for a close look at the Supreme Court's ruling on the D.C. gun ban on "Potomac Confidential" athttp://www.washingtonpost.com/liveonline.
As noted there are already FFLs in D.C. who sell to law enforcement and private security companies. Within days of the D.C. government enacting its new regulations I am sure there will be a retail store open for business. D.C.'s high sales tax might add $25 to the cost of a gun. That's not going to stop potential buyers.
Z-Michigan
Member
I read elsewhere that a standard FFL is ONLY issued to someone in business, not someone who just would like an FFL so they can buy for their own collection. (C&R is different)
So, are you saying that the fact that VPC has an FFL means they either need to transact business, or they are violating the law? That would be wonderful!
sumpnz
Member
So when someone complains that DC has to allow an FFL to open up shop they can claim that there already is an FFL. The fact that they won't sell to anyone will be just a minor technical detail that won't keep them from denying the permits to a new, legit FFL.
azredhawk44
Member
Isn't it patently unconstitutional for DC to prohibit training with arms?
Article 1, Section 8?
The whole Constitutional authorization for DC was based upon the need for Federal land outside of the authority of a State, wherein the Federal government could establish "Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards" and other such needed buildings?
Seems the whole city should be zoned appropriately for a shooting range, gun storage, ammunition storage, ammunition factories and military construction.
To DENY such a permit is unconstitutional under Article 1, Section 8.
Article 1, Section 8?
The whole Constitutional authorization for DC was based upon the need for Federal land outside of the authority of a State, wherein the Federal government could establish "Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards" and other such needed buildings?
Seems the whole city should be zoned appropriately for a shooting range, gun storage, ammunition storage, ammunition factories and military construction.
To DENY such a permit is unconstitutional under Article 1, Section 8.
armedandsafe
Member
Just when was the most recent time that such a fact bothered them?
Pops
azredhawk44
Member
Okay, I see what you mean Brickeye, but the Constitution explicitly declares the whole of DC to be zoned for arsenals, magazines, forts and other facilities that are used for training in warfare and martial skill, or producing equipment for warfare and martial use.
The entire city is "zoned" by the Constitution as such.
How does DC have authority to de-zone the city or deny a zoning permit for an entity that fits into the Constitutional zoning mould, short of an Amendment? Congress doesn't even have the power to do so.
The entire city is "zoned" by the Constitution as such.
How does DC have authority to de-zone the city or deny a zoning permit for an entity that fits into the Constitutional zoning mould, short of an Amendment? Congress doesn't even have the power to do so.
blackcash88
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M1911 said:
Would it be illegal to "gift" a gun to someone from out of state? What if someone has family in another state and their Dad buys a gun for them as a gift? Say, they go home over Christmas and get a shiny new gun under the tree to take home with them. Where's the crime in that? What about alternate "sales" where someone would trade something for the gun or "work it off".
I never understood the whole "you must be a state resident" to buy a handgun. What is the reasoning behind this? Are they afraid someone would buy a handgun and then take it back to a place where they aren't allowed? How is that the fault of the FFL? Anyone can legally buy a gun in their home state and then try to take it to NYC, Chicago, etc. Hopefully, with the Heller ruling, this will become less and less of an issue over time.
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