Fenty claims semi-auto handguns still illegal

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3. Clarifies the safe-storage and trigger-lock requirements. The legislation modifies existing law to clarify that firearms in the home must be stored unloaded and either disassembled secured with a trigger lock, gun safe, or similar device. An exception is made for a firearm while it is being used against reasonably perceived threat of immediate harm to a person within a registered gun owner’s home. The bill also includes provisions on the transportation of firearms for legal purposes.
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Suspiciously looks exactly like the old law.


Hmmm......


How do we go about fixing this?


.
 
How to fix? Obviously more litigation. DC City Gov has thrown down the gauntlet and declared that it will only follow the Heller decision in the narrowest means possible. Scalia's line about "immediate self defense" was enough for DC to run with. Who is going to bankroll this round of litigation? Levy is out. It may be time to start ponying up to NRA-ILA.
 
Suspiciously looks exactly like the old law.


Hmmm......


How do we go about fixing this?
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Actually it is not like the old law. With the old law one had to have a firearm unloaded and dissasembled, OR locked. With the Fenty law the firearm has to be either dissambled or locked AND unloaded as I read it.
YOu cannot use a firearm immediately against an immediate threat if it is unloaded (...and locked).

Old law
2502.01(b)(1), each registrant shall keep any
firearm in his possession unloaded and disassembled
or bound by a trigger lock or similar device
unless such firearm is kept at his place of
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New law, emphaisis mine:
“Sec. 702. Each registrant shall keep any firearm in his or her possession unloaded and
either disassembled or secured by a trigger lock, gun safe, or similar device,
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Notice the "either". So it has to be unloaded AND either dissasembled or locked under this new law.

If they do not change this one word and add a comma before passage, they will have created another law that has absolutely no standing. And they would also have to change the "immediate harm" requirement first because no one can know before hand if they will be in immediate harm untill it is too late to unlock and/or load a gun.
 
It appears to me that DC is implementing a "stalling" tactic. They are writing new laws that they have to understand fly in the face of the "spirit" of the Heller decision. So they have made a whole bunch of new "narrow" laws and are hoping that either no one will bother to challenge them, or if they do, they will likely be challenged one narrow facet after the other. Looking at how long it took to get Heller to the USSC and how long it took the USSC to come to a decision, I could see DC stringing this out for a decade or more. Could they be hoping in their hearts for a change in the USSC at some point in time which would then allow them to go back to square one with an overturn of Heller? These new laws smell like dead fish to me. Thank God I don't live in DC. I have much empathy for any gun owners and believers in the Bill of Rights who do find themselves living there, for whatever reasons.

As they said in Monty Python's movie "In Search of the Holy Grail"; "Run Away!"
 
USAFNoDAk, the one good thing is that this law will only be in effect for 90 days. The law that is passed which will be the one written in the statute may be different.
The question is, if this law is not challenged in the court or by the public, or the council is not shown the legal errors in it, then it will be re-passed as is. This is what Fenty is obviously hoping for, but he is playing with fire because the council can override any of his vetoes (they had enough for the first passage with the broader self defense eception). So Fenty is trying to buy time, but all he is doing is digging himself deeper into the pile of manure.
All it takes is one person to file a lawsuit and a judge agrees to hear it within the next 90 days and he will be blasted with embarassing media attention for it when it comes time to renew or repass the emergency legislation.
 
I hope you are right Novus Collectus. I'd like nothing better than to see Fenty hauled before the court again, to have the baileff "whack his pee pee". Lanier may as well have her butt paddled too, while they're at it.

Would it be the jurisdiction of the Appeals Court to whack them, since that court was the orginal court which ruled that DC's handgun ban was unconstitutional? Seems to me that the DC government is flipping them the bird, at least for now. Maybe in 90 days, they'll change it around. I'm guessing they stick to their guns, so to speak, and continue their narrow limitations which make it so that you can have a revolver, but it has to be unloaded and locked up, unless you have someone in your house who is uninvited and has "ALREADY" demonstrated a threat. So, if you surprise a common burglar in your house at night, and you pull a gun when he hasn't "threatened" you, you could be hauled off to jail, or the burglar could sue you for violating his rights. I hope that isn't what transpires. I wouldn't trust Fenty and Lanier, from what I've read and from their very own statements, as far as I could throw Michael Moore.
 
* The applicant must submit photos, proof of residency and proof of good vision (such as a driver’s license or doctor’s letter), and pass a written firearms test.
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I foresee problems with this part...
 
"Requires the Metropolitan Police Department to perform ballistic testing on handguns and makes such testing a registration requirement. The Chief of Police will require ballistics tests of any handgun submitted for registration to determine if it is stolen or has been used in a crime. "

Anyone want to guess about this testing. Will the police obtain the ammo, or does the registrant have to provide it? How many weeks can they hold the weapon for testing? They have the serial #'s so what the heck are they going to do, shoot each one, and run a match thru the FBI data base.

That is gonna be a zoo, for real
 
I foresee problems with this part...
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You do not have to be a resident of DC. However you have to have a place in DC to keep the firearm.
They have let non-residents register firearms for decades. There are many non-residents that have businesses in DC which have a registered firearm in their shop.
 
You do not have to be a resident of DC. However you have to have a place in DC to keep the firearm.
They have let non-residents register firearms for decades. There are many non-residents that have businesses in DC which have a registered firearm in their shop.
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No, I mean the "proof of good vision" and the written test.
 
No, I mean the "proof of good vision" and the written test.
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Oh definitely.
A costly fee to excercise one's right is like a poll tax ($48).
The no disability law is discriminatory and is likely arbitrarily applied at best.
The literacy test is right out of Jim Crow laws rulebook.
The vision test is unfair because you do not need as good enough vision to shoot as you do to drive a car (you don't have to read road rules or warning signs at a distance for instance).
 
Coop d V. You're one of the the good ones. Please note that I don't mean to say that like your ilk are few in number. ;)

Some, most, a few?... Of DC cops have plenty of royal crap to deal with. If you are an honest citizen, they will let you go about your biz.

Take that from someone who has crossed the Potomac enough to take the 5th,... empty!

No, that has nothing to do with liquor. Well, kinda.... :uhoh:

Thank you Sir for trying to make sense of the horse-poop you work in.
 
After thinking a bit, IMHO the new trigger-lock rule is a tough nut to crack.

None of the original Parker plaintiffs who challenged that rule were found to have standing. The appeals court said (shorthand) that they needed proof of imminent prosecution for violating the trigger-lock law. The DC Gov's hot air threats of prosecution against any plaintiff violating the trigger lock law were not enough for the appeals court to find standing. The USSC denied cert from the appeal from the denial of standing, so that ruling is still the law.

It will take someone actually arrested for violating the trigger lock law before the DC District Court (the entry way to the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit) will agree to hear the case on the merits.

Meanwhile in DC:

http://www.examiner.com/a-1487784~S...W_D_C___police_say.html?cid=rss-Washington_DC
Serial rapist may lurk in NW D.C., police say
Freeman Klopott, The Examiner
2008-07-15

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - District of Columbia police believe a man may be prowling the streets of Northwest neighborhoods early in the morning, burglarizing homes and raping the women inside.

On Monday, noting a recent surge in the number of rapes and attempted rapes, police officials said many of the sex crimes are likely connected.

Police said they’re not sure that the latest incident, in which a Hispanic male in his late teens or early 20s broke into a woman’s home on the 3300 block of 18th Street NW around 4 a.m. Thursday, raped her and then stole some of her belongings, is connected to three previous similar cases from earlier this year, but it might be.

But they’re almost certain the other three cases are linked. (story continues)
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Yeah, a trigger-locked gun would have been a GREAT help to that woman when she awoke at 4AM . . .
 
The requirement that any firearm be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock is unconstitutional, because "it makes it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense".
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Brady Campaign worked on "new" DC gun regs

It should be noted that the BRADY CAMPAIGN worked with the DC Government to come up with these new regs:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/14/AR2008071401332_pf.html
District Gun Bill Goes to Council
Officials Anticipate More Legal Action On Weapon Types

By Robert E. Pierre and Nikita Stewart
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, July 15, 2008; A01

Within weeks, District residents could legally keep handguns in their homes under emergency legislation that goes to the D.C. Council today, as officials try to comply with the Supreme Court ruling rejecting the city's handgun ban.

But District officials said yesterday that they are braced for the possibility of more legal wrangling as they try to respect the high court while maintaining the strictest controls possible.

Residents could begin applying this week for handgun permits in a process that requires a written examination, proof of residency, good vision and ballistic testing. Applicants also would have to pay a fee and agree to fingerprinting and criminal background checks.

The legislation does not lift restrictions on semiautomatic handguns, a move that will probably land the District back in court, according to the lawyer who successfully challenged the gun ban. . . .

The rules announced yesterday bring the District closer to gun restrictions in cities such as Chicago, said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

His staff huddled with the District on the regulations, but Helmke said it is uncertain which parts would withstand constitutional muster. Firearms may be banned, the majority opinion in the Heller case maintained, only if the weapons are "unusual and dangerous."

"It's not clear what that means," Helmke said. "This is the problem with getting the courts involved. These are usually issues that are determined by elected officials."

. . . .

The District is trying to determine where the line is, and it is trying to push it as far as it can go. . . .(more)
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They got your "reasonable restrictions" right here . . .they can't hide behind vague statements of "support" for DC to make its own gun laws, now. They had a hand in it!
 
I Can't Wait!

This whole thing is so outrageous. Didn't the ruling specifically say the gun needs to be available for IMMEDIATE use? Anyway they write it, it's an end run around the ruling that won't stand. They need to be made examples and they need to pay, big . . personally, professionally and legally.

I can't WAIT to witness the ire of the SCOTUS when this is brought to them. I'll bet even the minority won't take kindly to this arrogant nose thumbing at the court's ruling.

Does anyone know who would be the next entity to act? Would it be the ninth circuit? Or could the SCOTUS find them in contempt and impose penalties? Who IS the ultimate authority in D.C., Congress?
 
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