Appeals court halts U.S. judge’s order banning aspect of D.C. gun enforcement

[SecularMotion]

A federal appeals court on Friday temporarily stayed last week’s ruling by a lower court that the District government argued would threaten public safety by preventing police from enforcing a provision of the city’s new gun law that requires individuals show “good cause” to obtain a permit to carry a firearm in public.

A U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit panel voted 2 to 1 to grant an administrative stay while it considers whether to halt, pending appeal, a May 17 order by U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon. In granting an injunction sought by the gun rights group Pink Pistols and District resident Matthew Grace, Leon ruled that the “may issue” gun regulation is probably unconstitutional because it infringes on the Second Amendment’s grant of a “core right of self-defense.”

Attorneys for the D.C. government sought a stay to “preserve the status quo” while the courts grapple with a precedent-setting question of whether the right to bear arms extends outside the home — not just inside the home, as the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a 2008 case that struck down the District’s long-standing handgun ban.

The District also argued that a stay of Leon’s ruling would “preserve the integrity of the district court” and “respect” a March decision by another district court judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. Kollar-Kotelly denied an identical request for an injunction against police enforcement of the “good reason” requirement in a similar case already on expedited appeal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/appeals-court-halts-us-judges-order-banning-aspect-of-dc-gun-enforcement/2016/05/27/531f6928-1eb4-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html

[beevul]

1. Too cute by half.

Attorneys for the D.C. government sought a stay to “preserve the status quo” while the courts grapple with a precedent-setting question of whether the right to bear arms extends outside the home...

To argue that the right to keep and bear arms only exists in the home, is to argue that the federal government only has to follow its own rules (shall not be infringed) when its in your own house.


Utterly ridiculous.

[friendly_iconoclast]

2. Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has long genuflected to government powers:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/secret-court-judges-upset-at-portrayal-of-collaboration-with-government/2013/06/29/ed73fb68-e01b-11e2-b94a-452948b95ca8_story.html

[Eleanors38]

6. "collaboration," except when it comes to guns.

[TeddyR]

3. DC has one of the highest

Murder rates per capita in the US, despite the fact that law-abiding citizens were only recently permitted to own guns. DC has a criminal problem, not a firearm problem.

[jimmy the one]

5. bull poo that DC disallowed guns prior to heller

teddyR: DC has one of the highest Murder rates per capita in the US, despite the fact that law-abiding citizens were only recently permitted to own guns. DC has a criminal problem, not a firearm problem

Bull poo; DC has always allowed rifles & I think shot guns as well; and during the handgun ban period ~1976 - 2008, it's ~550,000 residents averaged about 100,000 long guns, or near a 20% gun ownership rate. DC has always been a may issue jurisdiction prior to 2008 - confiteor dunno what it is now.
Even some DC residents could own handguns during the ban, business owners, ex cops, certain federal employees I believe.
Not up to speed on DC firearm regulations, teddyR, shouldn't profess them.

~2015 DC homicide rate, 15.9
MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- The Memphis Police Dept investigated 168 murders in 2014 .. Out of 168 homicides, police said 24 of the killings are justifiable. {2014 I think} Gun homicides per 100,000 people: 19.38
may 12, 2016: Of the 79 homicides so far,.. 65 of the 79 murders to date involved firearms... murder rate was up 69%over 2015 and 43% over 2006

Note only Maryland is a gun control state, the rest are pro gun shall issue: Homicide data for 2013 don’t give us a clear picture of homicides only by firearm; however, 70 percent of homicides for the year were by firearm. The 10 states with the highest homicide rates were: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Maryland, Oklahoma, South Carolina, New Mexico, Missouri and Michigan. That lists includes six states that also have the highest firearm death rates.

Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, both groups that advocate for strong gun laws, published a scorecard on state gun laws in 2013, giving higher letter grades to states with stronger gun laws. Nine of the 10 states with the highest firearm death rates, according to the CDC, got an “F” for their gun laws, and one of them got a “D-.” (Note that most states — 26 of them — received an “F.”) Seven of the states with the lowest firearm death rates got a “B” or higher; two received a “C” or “C-“; and one — New Hampshire — got a “D-.”

(low homicide rate related to low population density): eight of the 10 states with the lowest homicide rates all got “D” or “F” grades from the Brady Campaign analysis.
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/10/gun-laws-deaths-and-crimes/

[TeddyR]

7. I stand corrected

Assuming DC always permitted citizens to own rifles and shotguns, how many of those weapons were used in crimes? As someone who works in DC and follows the news, I can't think of a single murder using long guns in the city. Lots of murders with handguns, even though DC is supposedly a handgun free zone.

[Kang Colby]

8. Well you are probably closer to being right than wrong...

DC requires registration and a $50 registration fee per gun....handguns can only be picked up from the cities single FFL offering transfers...I think he charges $125.00. So if you'd like to buy a pistol in DC that's $175.00. There are a few FFLs in VA and Maryland who understand DC laws and will work with you on rifles/shotguns so you can avoid the FFL transfer fee. In DC, you could probably own a SKS w/o detachable or a mini 14 without a single evil feature.

With respect to guns, DC is better than NYC or the state of Hawaii. But that's not saying much.

[TeddyR]

9. To follow up having read your post again

You do understand that Heller was about DC's gun control laws, correct? Here's the summary of the DC laws from Heller:

The District of Columbia generally prohibits the possession of handguns. It is a crime to carry an unregistered firearm, and the registration of handguns is prohibited. See D. C. Code §§7–2501.01(12), 7–2502.01(a), 7–2502.02(a)(4) (2001). Wholly apart from that prohibition, no person may carry a handgun without a license, but the chief of police may issue licenses for 1-year periods. See §§22–4504(a), 22–4506. District of Columbia law also requires residents to keep their lawfully owned firearms, such as registered long guns, “unloaded and dissembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device” unless they are located in a place of business or are being used for lawful recreational activities. See §7–2507.02.1

And Heller was a cop who carried a gun for his job but was denied a registration certificate for a gun he wanted to keep at home. So to clarify my prior statement, DC citizens were only recently permitted to own handguns, yet hundreds of murders are committed each year by criminals with handguns. So yeah, DC has a criminal problem.

[TeddyR]

10. Here's the key statistic from the factcheck article you linked to

The 10 states with the lowest homicide rates are: North Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Utah, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts and Oregon.

When you exclude the suicide rates and look only at homicides you get a VASTLY different picture. The following states on the list above received an F from the Brady Campaign (in their 2013 report): Maine, North Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho. New Hampshire a D-, Oregon a D+. Iowa a C-, Massachusetts a B+. So 8 of the 10 states with the lowest homicide rates received a D+ or worse rating, and 6 received an F. In other words, states have a problem with criminals, not with guns. The controllers HAVE to lump in suicides to support their position, even though doing so is completely disingenuous because suicides and homicides have completely different causes and require completely different solutions.

Here's an article from Eugene Volokh that you should read: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/10/06/zero-correlation-between-state-homicide-rate-and-state-gun-laws/

The correlation between the homicide rate and Brady score in all 51 jurisdictions is +.032 (on a scale of -1 to +1), which means that states with more gun restrictions on average have very slightly higher homicide rates, though the tendency is so small as to be essentially zero. (If you omit the fatal gun accident rates, then the correlation would be +.065, which would make the more gun-restricting states look slightly worse; but again, the correlation would be small enough to be essentially zero, given all the other possible sources of variation.)

[sarisataka]

4. I wonder how many other rights

Should a person have to show good cause to exercise?

What is the "good cause" for practicing a religion, printing a newspaper, voting?
Should self incriminating testimony be prohibited only if you show "good cause" by admitting guilt?
And really what is your "good cause" for getting a lawyer? We can hand out photocopies of the statutes your charged under and let you read them over before trial yes?