Here’s a handy pamphlet [pdf] that helps residents of the District of Columbia understand the effects of the Heller decision. They plan to begin allowing registrations on July 17th.
The parent website is inaccessible, so I can’t verify any of the specifics of the regulation. Although there are numerous and strident statements about safe storage, there appears to be no legal requirement to lock guns or keep them unloaded.
They are making the process as hard as possible, while staying within the requirements of the ruling. Applicants must:
- Be 21 years of age
- Be a DC resident
- Provide two passport pictures
- Submit fingerprints
- Pay $48.00
- Complete a “notarized firearms eligibility statement,” and
- Pass a 20-question multiple-choice test.
Oh, and the office is only open 7:00am-3:00pm during the week. Of all the impediments they’ve set up, however, the worst are the last two.
The last time any government agency required statements and written tests was…oh, 1965 in Alabama. If blacks wanted to vote, they had to take time off from work (a request employers routinely denied) during specific and brief hours, and they had to consent to a literacy and background tests that were designed to stump anyone without an Ivy League law degree (the tests refer to “questions” as “interrogatories”).
You can see the original test here [pdf]. The Civil Rights Act of 1965 established that human liberties were not subject to pop quizzes. The District is opening themselves up for a lawsuit here.
Also problematic is one of the legal requirements. Notice that the usual fare, such as felonies and narcotics (and prostitution?), place an applicant off-limits. But #7 also denies firearms registration to anyone who “suffer[s] from a physical defect which would make it unsafe for you to possess and use a firearm safely and responsibly.”
So, what determines what “physical defect” applies? Who makes the judgement? The last time I checked, the handicapped are still citizens. They have the right, and perhaps a greater need, of self-defense.
This is an ADA lawsuit waiting to happen.
The third problem comes with the types of weapons delineated. According to the pamphlet:
(…) a shotgun barrel cannot be less than 20 inches in length, and a rifle barrel cannot be less than 16 inches in length and must have a total overal length of 26 inches or more. No weapon can shoot more than one shot by a single function of the trigger, or semi-automatically [sic] shoot more than 12 shots without manual reloading or be readily converted or restored to do so.
That means nothing semi-automatic, which excludes 60-80% of the handguns on the market. Handguns are protected by the 2nd Amendment according to the ruling, regardless of type. Moreover, since semi-automatic pistols represent the vast majority of military and law-enforcement sidearms (as well as a significant majority in civilian target shooting), they are protected under the Heller (p. 52) decision as weapons “in common use at the time.”
Mayor Fenty seems intent on baiting the Court on this issue. I can think of no other reason for these stipulations other than to invite lawsuits. It could also be that the District seeks to postpone allowing residents to register handguns by allowing legal challenges to pile up.
In any case, nothing good can really come of stalling, and the Mayor should have learned that by now. Politically, the smart thing would have been to cooperate with the DC Circuit Court when they overturned the ban. Instead, he chose to fight, and in doing so, he lost on a scale much wider than I’d guess he’d imagined.
I find it hard to find sympathy for him.