A federal appeals court has turned thumbs down on a Washington D.C. anti-gun law that is the kind of law that even many advocates of gun control find extreme:
A federal appellate panel today struck down parts of the District’s gun law as unconstitutional, ruling that the city cannot bar people from keeping firearms in their homes.
The decision was a victory for six D.C. residents who said they wanted to keep firearms for self-defense. But it could have much broader implications: The case eventually could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court as a test of the thorny issues surrounding the Second Amendment and the public’s right to keep weapons.
The District has one of the strictest gun laws in the nation — barring all handguns unless they were registered prior to 1976 — and that law has come under attack over the past three decades in Congress as well as the courts. Today’s ruling guts key parts of the law, but does not address provisions that prohibit people from carrying unregistered guns outside the home.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) and other D.C. officials were reviewing the opinion and planned a press conference for this afternoon.
The ruling came on a 2-to-1 vote by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman wrote the majority opinion, also signed by Thomas B. Griffith. Karen LeCraft Henderson dissented.
“We conclude that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms,” Silberman declared in the 58-page majority ruling.
There is gun control — and then there is gun control. And this gun control banning guns altogether is one that many (including this writer) feels goes way too far. In fact, the constitution makes it clear that people are allowed to own and keep guns. There are then gradations in that assertion — and that’s what most gun control has been about so far. CONTROLLING versus totally BANNING ownership of guns.
You can see a wide variety of views on this in “blogtopia” (that term was created by this guy). And even here you can see that some who you’d expect to be in favor of gun control find the Washington, D.C. law extreme. Meanwhile, to those who oppose any kind of gun control, the law is “proof” that people who want gun control are trying to eliminate the right to own guns (which is generally not true):
Wizbang ponders the impact of this on the 2008 Presidential race and on Rudy Giuliani’s prospective candidacy. Taylor Marsh doesn’t like the D.C. law one bit. La Shawn Barber notes that DC’s crime rate WENT UP after the gun ban was put in place. And for a lot of conservative blog reaction read Michelle Malkin and law professor Glenn Reynolds (who says this is a “very important” development, among other things)..
In fact, stereotypes do NOT apply here.
You can’t assume “oh, all the liberals will be upset.” In fact, solid, thoughtful progressives such as Colorado lawyer Jeralyn Merrit applaud the ruling. And make sure you read the always-blunt-and-honest The Gun Toting Liberal’s take on the ruling. Applause also comes from The Impolitic.
So what do you find here?
A rare thing these days: consensus.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.