D.C.'s Legal Smackdown May Come This Week

[TPaine7]

Or at least the process appears to be starting:

Congress plans to take up a bill this week that would repeal the District's gun-registration requirements and make it easier for residents to legally buy semiautomatic weapons, raising alarm among city officials that the measure would effectively end local gun control.

Chiefs of the D.C. police, the Capitol Police, the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies are expected to testify against the bill during a House hearing today. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) plans to introduce a substitute bill that would simply mandate that D.C.'s gun laws conform to a recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down the city's 32-year-old ban on handguns. <Isn't it embarrassing that she wants Congress to tell these cretins that they have to obey the Supreme Court?--TPaine7>

But the tougher legislation is likely to prevail in the House, according to congressional sources and supporters and opponents of the bill. It has won the backing of 48 Democrats, many facing reelection in strongly pro-gun areas, and is expected to pick up broad support among Republicans.

The legislation has four main goals. It would repeal the D.C. ban on semiautomatic pistols and rifles; eliminate the city's gun-registration requirements; allow District residents to purchase guns in Virginia and Maryland; and abolish the regulation that guns kept at home be unloaded and either disassembled or fitted with trigger locks.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090802593.html

This is great news. Apparently we won't have to wait decades for the case to wend its way through the courts again. The District must recognize that any local control it enjoys is at the pleasure of Congress and subject to the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court. Defying the Constitution will result in disciplinary action.

Mayor Daly, are you paying attention?

LOL!

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[bossy22]

2. how is what they did stupidity?

[SteveM]

3. The main thing here is the last of the "four main goals":

addressing that clinical -- even lurid -- D.C. measure to prevent people from exercising their natural right of self-defense.

"...abolish the regulation that guns kept at home be unloaded and either disassembled or fitted with trigger locks."

This really reveals the intent of most gun-controllers: to disarm citizens COMPLETELY and to PREVENT THEM FROM DEFENDING THEMSELVES in deference to the crim. The day someone researches and finds out what kind of teeth-grinding hatred and resentment spawns such notions is the day we find out what kind of people Second Amendment defenders are up against, at least in D.C.

It's much more than gun-control.

Further from WaPo:

"I'm very concerned that, under that legislation, the gun-rights advocates could challenge almost any restriction we've placed on gun ownership," Nickles said. Opponents said they feared that if the bill became law, people could carry loaded semiautomatic weapons or .50-caliber sniper rifles in the city.

There's that ol' .50 sniper rifle again. yeehah.

[jeepnstein]

4. .50 caliber?

They'll be easy to spot. Have any of those wahoos ever shot a .50? They are monstrously heavy and not exactly concealable. Has anyone ever used one in a crime in the United States?

D.C. has a very serious criminal problem. When they start paying attention to that and not some inanimate object, they'll start making progress.

Most of the citizens of D.C. are nice people who obey the law. They're not the problem and shouldn't be treated as if they were.

[SteveM]

5. I heard an abstinence-only guy say kissing can give you "tonsular syphillis"(nt)

[jeepnstein]

6. Thanks for the tip!

I guess...

[AtheistCrusader]

7. Just a couple.

One guy that went postal in a grocery store and killed some people, but I don't think he actually fired the .50, he was carrying many weapons. Also, an incident where a couple people attacked a armored car. Occupants were injured but not killed. I'm not aware of any others, except perhaps raids for (X) reason turning up posession of one of these rifles, by a disqualified citizen. (felon, restraining order, etc)

[jeepnstein]

8. I know of one..

We had a raid locally where the suspect had Ma Deuce set up in his living room. It was the real deal, not a semi-auto conversion. He traded a bunch of oxycontin for it. The guy was a total scum bag even if he did attend Harvard School of Medicine. It apparently came from South or Central America. Boy, was everyone surprised when they kicked the door and saw what was waiting for them.

I think the Branch Davidians had a couple of .50's, too. They might have also been M2's but I can't recall.