DC to ban magazines and clips over 10 rounds

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Here's a DC City Council member's take:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/19/AR2008091903015.html

A Workable Gun Law for the City

Sunday, September 21, 2008; B08

In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court ruled that individuals have a Second Amendment right to possess handguns and struck down the District's total ban. The court said that the right to have handguns is not absolute, but it gave scant guidance as to what limitations would be permissible. The District now faces a formidable balancing act in that it must honor the right and protect public safety. Our task is especially daunting since we must work in the shadow of lawsuits and NRA-inspired congressional interference. The question is how we should proceed.

n terms of honoring the right, the first step is to be as precise as possible in defining what the right is. I would frame it this way: An individual has a constitutional right to possess a handgun in the home and have it immediately available for self-defense.

The court's opinion was ambiguous about whether the right extends beyond the home to public spaces. The opinion spoke of having a gun to meet confrontations, which, of course, can occur outside of the home. It also approved of limiting guns in certain places such as government buildings, thereby implying that guns might be acceptable in other public places. Still, the majority repeatedly linked the new right to self-defense in the home, and, given the dangers of broadening the right outside of that sphere and the court's oft-professed self-restraint, a legislature should be free to confine handguns to the home.

Second, we must be careful to identify what handguns citizens may have. The court was unclear about whether handguns include semiautomatics. It told us that handguns are protected because they are America's most popular, "quintessential self-defense weapon." Handguns are easier to store in a readily accessible location and harder to wrestle away, and they require less upper body strength than, say, shotguns. Semiautomatic handguns fit the bill. They are popular and often easier to afford and quicker to load than revolvers. They should be permissible, though limits on magazine size (fewer than 12 bullets) would reasonably diminish the weapon as a killing machine without detracting from its self-defense value.

On the public safety side, the major dangers of handguns, particularly in urban areas such as Washington, include accidents, suicides, domestic violence and the migration of legal guns to criminal ventures.

Reducing accidents will require training and safe storage rules. The District's most recently enacted emergency gun law lacks training provisions but now includes storage provisions that make guns readily available for self-defense, as the court requires.

Fashioning effective safeguards against suicides and domestic violence will be difficult. Although the court acknowledged that guns can be withheld from the mentally ill and felons and although other states have broadened the category of ineligible gun owners, we can never fully account for all those who may attempt suicide or perpetrate domestic violence. And the stark lethality of guns will mean that, despite our best efforts, more people will die.

The loss of legal guns to illegal purposes can never be fully prevented either, but measures such as strict reporting of loss or theft and micro-stamping of ammunition for tracing purposes should be included in our future gun legislation.

For any new law to survive inevitable legal challenges and congressional trampling of local prerogatives, we must honor the constitutional right and justify all limitations with a solid record and clear findings. The goal should be to protect the public as far as lawfully possible, not to render the right meaningless by adding onerous requirements.

-- Mary M. Cheh

Washington

The writer is a professor of constitutional law at George Washington University and a member of the D.C. Council.

What is with doofuses and their obsession with the term "killing machines" in regard to common firearms? I will never get it.
 
Well she hasn't studied the home invasion statistics here in NJ - that's for sure. If you have to defend 'home and hearth', as Justice Scalia said, you would be well to study your potential adversaries. They often come in two's and three's in a NJ home invasion, so multiple armed attackers is a likely scenario and 12 bullets just doesn't make me that comfortable.
 
They often come in two's and three's in a NJ home invasion, so multiple armed attackers is a likely scenario and 12 bullets just doesn't make me that comfortable.

If you can't do the job with 4 to 6 rounds per attacker, there's more reason there to be uncomfortable than mag size. :evil:

Seriously though... those dummies in D.C. really do need to be beat to death with the Clue Bat... :rolleyes:

In the mean time though, it'd serve a person well to have plenty of loaded mags and to religiously practice their speed reloads.


J.C.
 
Dumb dumb dumb DC

What a complete bunch of BS.....now instead of 2 15 rd mags I will carry 3 10 rd mags. Are the people for real? I never fail to be amazed at the steps DC polititions will take to keep their hold on those of us who obey the law while protecting those who wish to do us harm. I am blessed to live in AZ. I view DC like that uncle you never want to visit, he is family but I wont sit on his lap......

"This new legislation is the second step in the process to do all that we can to minimize handgun violence in the District,” said Mayor Fenty. "
 
They are going with 10 round mags, not 11 rounders

And yes even lever actions with tubular magazines over 10 rounds will now be banned
 
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