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While they're at it they might consider repealing the rest of D.C.'s home rule authority.
Hatch Introduces Legislation to Repeal District's Handgun Ban
Norton Calls Bill an Assault on Home Rule
By Spencer S. Hsu and Arthur Santana
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 16, 2003; 7:12 PM
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee wants District residents to be able to own handguns, reviving the pitched debate over gun control in a city with some of the toughest restrictions in the nation.
The D.C. Personal Protection Act, introduced Tuesday by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), would repeal the District's ban on handguns, end strict registration requirements for ammunition and other firearms and lift prohibitions on the possession or carrying of weapons at homes and workplaces. The legislation would also loosen the District's definition of machine guns, possession of which is now subject to additional sanction.
While the District's 1976 gun law has been a frequent target of gun rights activists, it has withstood assaults as recently as 1999, when the House of Representatives failed to enact national gun control legislation that included its repeal. But the involvement of Hatch, a senior Senate Republican leader, and the recent success of congressional candidates supported by gun rights groups provide fresh impetus for a showdown over gun limits in the nation's capital.
Hatch said congressional repeal of the District laws was needed to enforce the constitutional right to bear arms.
"It is time to restore the rights of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves and to defend their families against murderous predators," stated Hatch, "Try to imagine the horror that [a] victim felt when he faced a gun-toting criminal and could not legally reach for a firearm to protect himself."
According to U.S. Justice Department statistics, the District's per capita murder rate hovered between third and seventh-highest from 1994 to 2001. Hatch called the District prohibition "as ineffective and deplorable as it is unconstitutional."
District officials, including Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D) and police chief Charles H. Ramsey opposed the legislation. Norton said the Hatch bill launches a second assault on home rule, citing President Bush's plan to introduce a national pilot school voucher program in the District this fall. The Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to vote on a $40 million plan for vouchers and public schools today.
"The District is being targeted on guns for the same reason that it was targeted on vouchers -- because we are helpless without senators and the full panoply of legal rights to protect ourselves," Norton said, adding that citizens would be placed in the line of fire to placate an interest group. "The only thing that would cause more murder and mayhem in this city is allowing freer access to guns."
Council member Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3), who chairs the Judiciary Committee of the Council, called the legislation a distraction. "I can't believe a senator of his stature would waste time on something like that," she said.
The House and Senate committee chairmen with jurisdiction over the bill -- Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-Maine) and Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) declined to comment today. It is unlikely that Congress would take up the bill before members recess in August.
In one of the farthest-reaching gun-control laws in the country, the District effectively barred anyone but law enforcement officials and residents who already owned registered weapons from owning a handgun after Sept. 24, 1976. Rifles and shotguns are carefully licensed.
That limit, combined with a surge in violent, drug-related crime in the 1980s, have put the District at the center of an ongoing debate over the effectiveness of such laws.
In the 1999 handgun ban debate, D.C. police reported that 1,100, or 88 percent of D.C. homicides from the previous four years were gun-related, and about 8,700 robberies were committed with firearms.
Police also reported at the time that there were 99,000 legally registered handguns, shotguns and rifles in the District, while they recovered 2,368 illegal weapons in 1998.
Nearly half of the guns used in D.C. crimes are purchased in neighboring states, police said in 1999, with 23 percent sold in Virginia and 20 percent sold in Maryland.
Matt Nosanchuk, litigation director for the Violence Policy Center, a gun-control advocacy group, said there is no evidence that greater access to guns reduces crime. "If Senator Hatch really believes that people are safer when they are carrying handguns, then why doesn't he advocate lifting the ban on bringing weapons into the U.S. Capitol?" Nosanchuk said.
Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the Fairfax-based National Rifle Association, called Hatch's legislation a positive step: "D.C.'s draconian gun ban has effectively stripped the city's law abiding residents of the basic right to defend themselves and their loves ones."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
Hatch Introduces Legislation to Repeal District's Handgun Ban
Norton Calls Bill an Assault on Home Rule
By Spencer S. Hsu and Arthur Santana
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 16, 2003; 7:12 PM
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee wants District residents to be able to own handguns, reviving the pitched debate over gun control in a city with some of the toughest restrictions in the nation.
The D.C. Personal Protection Act, introduced Tuesday by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), would repeal the District's ban on handguns, end strict registration requirements for ammunition and other firearms and lift prohibitions on the possession or carrying of weapons at homes and workplaces. The legislation would also loosen the District's definition of machine guns, possession of which is now subject to additional sanction.
While the District's 1976 gun law has been a frequent target of gun rights activists, it has withstood assaults as recently as 1999, when the House of Representatives failed to enact national gun control legislation that included its repeal. But the involvement of Hatch, a senior Senate Republican leader, and the recent success of congressional candidates supported by gun rights groups provide fresh impetus for a showdown over gun limits in the nation's capital.
Hatch said congressional repeal of the District laws was needed to enforce the constitutional right to bear arms.
"It is time to restore the rights of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves and to defend their families against murderous predators," stated Hatch, "Try to imagine the horror that [a] victim felt when he faced a gun-toting criminal and could not legally reach for a firearm to protect himself."
According to U.S. Justice Department statistics, the District's per capita murder rate hovered between third and seventh-highest from 1994 to 2001. Hatch called the District prohibition "as ineffective and deplorable as it is unconstitutional."
District officials, including Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D) and police chief Charles H. Ramsey opposed the legislation. Norton said the Hatch bill launches a second assault on home rule, citing President Bush's plan to introduce a national pilot school voucher program in the District this fall. The Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to vote on a $40 million plan for vouchers and public schools today.
"The District is being targeted on guns for the same reason that it was targeted on vouchers -- because we are helpless without senators and the full panoply of legal rights to protect ourselves," Norton said, adding that citizens would be placed in the line of fire to placate an interest group. "The only thing that would cause more murder and mayhem in this city is allowing freer access to guns."
Council member Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3), who chairs the Judiciary Committee of the Council, called the legislation a distraction. "I can't believe a senator of his stature would waste time on something like that," she said.
The House and Senate committee chairmen with jurisdiction over the bill -- Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-Maine) and Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) declined to comment today. It is unlikely that Congress would take up the bill before members recess in August.
In one of the farthest-reaching gun-control laws in the country, the District effectively barred anyone but law enforcement officials and residents who already owned registered weapons from owning a handgun after Sept. 24, 1976. Rifles and shotguns are carefully licensed.
That limit, combined with a surge in violent, drug-related crime in the 1980s, have put the District at the center of an ongoing debate over the effectiveness of such laws.
In the 1999 handgun ban debate, D.C. police reported that 1,100, or 88 percent of D.C. homicides from the previous four years were gun-related, and about 8,700 robberies were committed with firearms.
Police also reported at the time that there were 99,000 legally registered handguns, shotguns and rifles in the District, while they recovered 2,368 illegal weapons in 1998.
Nearly half of the guns used in D.C. crimes are purchased in neighboring states, police said in 1999, with 23 percent sold in Virginia and 20 percent sold in Maryland.
Matt Nosanchuk, litigation director for the Violence Policy Center, a gun-control advocacy group, said there is no evidence that greater access to guns reduces crime. "If Senator Hatch really believes that people are safer when they are carrying handguns, then why doesn't he advocate lifting the ban on bringing weapons into the U.S. Capitol?" Nosanchuk said.
Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the Fairfax-based National Rifle Association, called Hatch's legislation a positive step: "D.C.'s draconian gun ban has effectively stripped the city's law abiding residents of the basic right to defend themselves and their loves ones."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
