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Wed 9 May, 2007 05:59 pm
Court Denies D.C.'s gun appeal
By Gary Emerling
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 9, 2007
A federal appeals court yesterday denied a petition by D.C. officials to reconsider
a March ruling that overturned the District's 30-year-old gun ban.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 6-4 to deny
the District's request that the entire court review a previous ruling in
which a three-judge panel found some of the District's gun restrictions to be unconstitutional.
The one-page order contained no explanation for the court's decision.
The decision not to rehear the case means city officials
must appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if they hope to preserve what
had been considered among the most-stringent gun laws in the nation.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty yesterday said he was "disappointed" and "surprised" by the denial.
He said that he is reviewing yesterday's court decision
and that city officials have 90 days to file an appeal to the Supreme Court.
"We want to say emphatically that the District's gun-control laws, as
have been outlined by many law-enforcement experts, are a critical part
of the District's public safety strategy and have been so for more than 30 years,"
said Mr. Fenty, a Democrat. "It is our intent to immediately begin
reviewing all of our options over the next few weeks and to soon make a
decision and an announcement about how we will proceed."
Mr. Fenty said his administration is also considering working with the
D.C. Council to craft new gun-control legislation that would still fit within
the District's goals for public safety.
The potential legislation could define "exactly how handguns could be
stored in the home and what is still not permitted in the District of Columbia,"
Mr. Fenty said.
"Our No. 1 priority is the safety of the residents of the District of Columbia,"
he said. "We will weigh everything."
The District's gun restrictions remained in place through the appeals process.
Mr. Fenty said officials will file a motion to keep them intact during the
90 days available
to consider a Supreme Court appeal, and he expects
no opposition to the move.
The panel ruled in a 2-1 decision issued March 9 that the right to bear arms
as guaranteed in the Second Amendment applies to individuals and not only to militias.
The initial ruling revoked portions of D.C. law that prohibit residents
from keeping firearms in their homes and require owners of registered guns,
including shotguns, to store them with trigger locks or keep them disassembled.
The denial dealt a blow to officials' hopes of keeping the ban intact
in a city that has often struggled with a notorious crime image.
Last year, 137 of the city's 169 killings were committed using guns,
according to statistics from the Metropolitan Police Department.
So far this year, the District has recorded 57 killings, up from 49 at this time last year.
The Fenty administration filed its request for rehearing on April 9,
arguing that the panel's decision contradicted Supreme Court precedent
and that the "Second Amendment protects private possession of weapons
only in connection with service in a well-regulated citizens militia."
Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, who wrote the original dissenting opinion
in the March decision, was among those who rejected the petition to
rehear the case.
Assistant Police Chief Winston Robinson, who appeared at a press
conference with Mr. Fenty yesterday to comment on the ruling, said
revoking the city's gun laws would only lead to more violence and said
Virginia Tech gunman Seung-hui Cho was a "good example of guns being
available to people who should not have them."
"Having guns available in homes will lend themselves to be available to children
and others for crime or to accidentally harm themselves," Chief Robinson said.
The decision was cheered, however, by Wayne LaPierre,
executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.
"We think it's a vindication for the overwhelming majority of Americans
who all along have viewed the Second Amendment as being about their individual freedoms," Mr. LaPierre said.
I believe that D.C. will probably appeal to the USSC.
If it does not, that decision will only result from its analysis
that its chances of success in suppression of guns are poor.
If the USSC declares that the right to keep and bear arms
is a " fundamental right " of American citizens,
then the 2nd Amendment will be formally incorporated
against the states by the 14th Amendment,
and gun control will end nationwide,
at least insofar as defense of your life and property when u r at HOME.
David
As far as I understand,
the only ordinance that will be before the Court,
if the USSC rules on this case, will be the intrusiion of gun control
into a citizen 's home; hence it will remain for future litigation
for the Court to void gun control as it
applies to a citizen 's being armed in the street.
As to that state of affairs,
it may cite to its decision in 1857,
when the US Supreme Court acknowledged a citizen 's rights
to personal defense, as shown forth in the 2nd Amendment
when the Court said that CITIZENS are:
"... entitled to the privileges and
immunities of citizens ..." and have
"...the full liberty of speech ... to
hold public meetings upon political
affairs, and TO KEEP AND CARRY ARMS
wherever they went." [emphasis added]
Chief Justice Roger Taney
DRED SCOTT v. SANFORD 6O US 393 (1857)
Thus the Court found the individual citizen's rights to be protected
from violation by any government, be it federal, state or local.
David
Appellate Judges Let Gun Ruling Stand
Fenty 'Deeply Disappointed'; District Might Defend Ban Before the Supreme Court
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 9, 2007; Page B01
A federal appeals court in Washington yesterday let stand a ruling
that struck down a restrictive D.C. ban on gun ownership,
setting the stage for a potentially major constitutional battle over
the Second Amendment in the Supreme Court.
D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said at a news conference that he
was "deeply disappointed" by the court's decision not to reconsider the
city's arguments that the three-decades-old gun ban was constitutional.
Fenty (D) said the city will now mull over whether to take the risk of
pressing to defend the D.C. gun law before the Supreme Court or to
rewrite gun regulations for keeping guns in private District homes.
"As mayor, I remain committed to combating gun violence, and . . . this
is a critical part of the District's crime-control strategy," he said. "The
predominant factor in our consideration [of how to proceed] will be the
safety of District residents."
Fenty and other officials had asked the full appeals court to review a
ruling issued by a three-judge panel that struck down a part of the D.C.
law that bars people from keeping handguns in homes. With its 6 to 4
vote to reject a hearing by the full court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the D.C. Circuit sped up the timetable for a showdown. Experts said that
timetable favors gun rights advocates and the D.C. residents who first challenged the law.
"Clearly it would have been better for us to have another chance to argue
before the full court," said D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer.
"It goes much faster now."
If the city petitions for a hearing before the Supreme Court -- and it must make that decision within 90 days --
legal experts say the high court probably will agree to take the case within a year.
A central question the D.C. case poses
is whether the Second Amendment protects an individual's rights to bear arms.
In its 2 to 1 ruling in March, the appellate panel ruled that it does.
The Bush administration is on record supporting the argument that
the Second Amendment protects individual rights, and it would be able to
argue that view if the case is heard soon. If the full appeals court had
heard the case, a new administration might have taken a different stance
by the time it reached the Supreme Court.
"That's very important to have the government on our side,"
said Robert A. Levy, a libertarian lawyer who spearheaded
the challenge to the law.
"And that could change with a new administration."
Experts say that gun-rights advocates have never had a better chance for
a major Second Amendment victory, because a significant number of justices
on the Supreme Court have indicated a preference for the individual-rights interpretation.
In my opinion, the pro-freedom side of the argument
( and the historically correct side of the argument )
probably has the support of Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia,
Thomas and Kennedy. Some of the liberals have also
given pro-freedom statements about the 2nd Amendment
David
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