Court lifts DC gun ban
A Federal appeals court has recently lifted a 30-year-old ban on handguns in Washington DC, angering gun control advocates and the city’s mayor, who vowed to fight the decision.
The judges ruled that the US capital’s 1976 ban on keeping handguns in homes was unconstitutional, as the constitution’s Second Amendment decrees the right the bear arms.
The court’s opinion, written by Judge Laurence H Silberman, argued that gun ownership is an individual right and that the city’s restrictions violate the spirit of the Second Amendment.
The case stems from a lawsuit filed by six District residents in February 2003, four of which expressed a desire to own handguns for self-defence, one of which owned a shotgun, but wanted to keep it assembled and loaded and one who is a special police officer and wants to keep a gun at home. None of the residents expressed a desire to carry the gun outside their homes, nor did they seek to challenge the right of the city to mandate firearm registration.
Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty vowed to “explore every legal option that will uphold the city’s gun ban”.
The decision “marks the first time in US history that the federal appeals court has struck down a portion of a gun law on second amendment grounds,” he said.
The District’s gun restrictions, which include a ban on handgun purchases or ownership (excluding guns bought before 1976) and mandate that rifles and shotguns be kept unloaded and disassembled, is said to be an unmitigated failure. Since 1976, gun violence has accelerated and the laws are had “no good effect” and “harmed ordinary people”, said The Washington Times.
Of the 169 murders in Washington last year, 137 involved guns.
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