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Index > General Gun Laws:
Second Amendment Can Protect Citizens Where D.C. Government Fails
By: NRA
 Having failed to protect citizens from crime in the 1970s, the District government chose to ban an effective means of protection for honest citizens. Now that its bans on possessing firearms for self-defense have also failed — both on the ground and in the U.S. Court of Appeals — D.C. defends them even more feverishly.
The District is appealing a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which held in Parker v. District of Columbia that gun control laws imposed by the D.C. City Council prohibiting possession of a handgun, and prohibiting keeping any gun assembled and loaded at home (the condition required for self-defense), are unconstitutional.
The Court of Appeals agreed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the Justice Department, the Framers of the Bill of Rights, and constitutional scholars past and present, that the Second Amendment protects a pre-existing right of individuals, not a so-called “right” of a state to maintain a select militia, or a privilege to have guns only when serving in a select militia. The court also ruled that individuals have a right to possess handguns.
The panel’s decision overturned the ruling by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, that the Second Amendment protects only a right to be armed while on active duty in a militia. The city appealed the panel’s decision to the full Appeals Court, which allowed the panel’s decision to stand. Before the city appealed to the Supreme Court, the anti-gun Brady Campaign, which has provided legal assistance to the city throughout, expressed its concerns. Brady Campaign president Paul Helmke, said, “The D.C. law [is] a tougher one to get behind and defend. Why is this the one we’re going to be taking up to the Supremes?”
The history of the ban is a history of failure. In 1976, D.C.’s City Council thumbed its nose at Congress and the rest of the U.S., and began conducting a social experiment of its own design against the city’s law-abiding residents. The experiment, unlike anything known elsewhere in America, took the form of the Firearms Control Regulations Act, which required that firearms kept at home be rendered useless for protection by being “unloaded, disassembled, or bound by a trigger lock or similar device.” It required that all privately owned firearms be registered, and prohibited possession of a handgun not registered with city police prior to Sept. 24, 1976, and re-registered by Feb. 5, 1977.
The results have been catastrophic. Since D.C. imposed its 1976 laws, it has earned the unfortunate distinction of “murder capital of the United States.” D.C.’s murder rate had been declining before 1976, but it increased thereafter. Between 1976-1991, it rose 200%, while the U.S. murder rate rose only 9%. (FBI, D.C. Police)
- The District’s prohibition on possession of firearms for defense at home conflicts with Congress’ stated purpose in passing the Gun Control Act (1968). Section 101 of that law states “[I]t is not the purpose of this title to place any undue or unnecessary Federal restrictions or burdens on law-abiding citizens with respect to the acquisition, possession, or use of firearms appropriate to the purpose of hunting, trapshooting, target shooting, personal protection, or any other lawful activity, and that this title is not intended to discourage or eliminate the private ownership or use of firearms by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes. . .” (Emphasis added.)
- D.C. is the only jurisdiction in the U.S. that prohibits keeping firearms in an operable condition at home, for defense against criminal attack. The right to be secure in one’s home is an historic right affirmed in law and court decisions, but curtailed in D.C.
- The District should not criminalize self-defense when it cannot defend people. As legal scholars Robert J. Cottrol and Raymond T. Diamond have written, “[A] society with a dismal record of protecting a people has a dubious claim on the right to disarm them. . . . [I]t is unwise to place the means of protection totally in the hands of the state. . . .” (“The Second Amendment: Toward an Afro-Americanist Reconsideration,” Gun Control and the Constitution: Sources and Explorations on the Second Amendment, ed., Robert J. Cottrol, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, School of Law, 1994, p. 427.)
- The District should not criminalize self-defense when it is not legally obligated to defend its residents. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals has ruled that the city’s police department is “not generally liable to victims of violent criminal acts for failure to provide adequate police protection. . . .” (Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1, 1981)
- D.C.’s gun law forces law-abiding people to choose between protecting their lives and obeying the law. Former U.S. Senator Warren Rudman, after retiring from office, said: “Honest people don’t have guns and criminals do. I think people have a right to protect themselves. I was outraged to learn that I couldn’t legally have a gun in Washington. Despite the law, I kept one in my office and one in my apartment, because there were plenty of armed criminals roaming the streets of Washington.” (Combat: Twelve Years in the U.S. Senate, 1996, p.40)
- Allowing citizens to defend themselves at home deters criminals. A study for the U.S. Department of Justice found that 40% of felons have decided to not commit one or more crimes for fear their potential victims were armed. (James D. Wright and Peter H. Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms, 1986, p. 155.)
- The District’s prohibition against using firearms for defense against violent criminal attack increases the likelihood that crime victims will be injured by their assailants. National Crime Victimization Surveys show: “Robbery and assault victims who used a gun to resist were less likely to be attacked or to suffer an injury than those who used any other methods of self-protection or those who did not resist at all.” (Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns, 1997, p. 171).
- On July 11, 2006 D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey declared a “crime emergency” in the District. The move, in reaction to a recent surge in homicides, allowed him to quickly adjust officers’ schedules and limit their days off. Ramsey declared four “crime emergencies” during his tenure between 1998-2006.
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