Outside of a news release that was picked up by Market Watch, not much was said in the news yesterday about an emergency order changing firearms regulations in Washington, D.C. that were forced by a pair of lawsuits, one filed by the Second Amendment Foundation and the other by the National Rifle Association.
You certainly found no mention of it on the Metropolitan Police Department's website for news announcements, at least not at the time this column was published.
After last year’s landmark ruling by the Supreme Court that struck down the 30-year handgun ban in the District of Columbia, the city had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the realm of common-sense with follow-up lawsuits. Before yesterday, the city had been arbitrarily prohibiting the registration of some perfectly-reliable, safe and affordable handguns because of such nonsense as the color of the particular firearm. It did not matter that identical firearms with different finishes were being allowed; the city has been trying to make the ownership of handguns – now protected by the high court’s 2008 ruling – as difficult and discouraging as possible.
The separate SAF and NRA legal actions serve as a legal “slap upside the head” for the bureaucrats who remain ultra-resistant to the notion that District residents should enjoy all of their civil rights, including the right to keep and bear arms.
Previously, the District had relied solely on an “approved handgun roster” established in California as its guide on which guns to allow and which to reject. But the California roster had been rather subjective and some handguns initially declared “safe” had been removed, not because of malfunctions, but because the gunmakers didn’t pay a fee to keep their gun models on the list.
Now, Metro Police will also rely on other “approved” gun lists from Maryland and Massachusetts, as well as the California roster.
SAF founder Alan Gottlieb noted that the District, by changing the regulations as a way to avoid another court loss on gun rights issues, “admitted that its existing roster of handguns approved for registration…was arbitrary.”
Attorney Alan Gura, representing SAF (he’s the guy who successfully argued the Heller case before the Supreme Court last year) noted that guns placed on the list will remain there without expiration. He vowed the fight will continue, though.
“We won’t stop until this list is scrapped,” he said.
Gura is right. Government should not be in a position to approve or reject the kind of handgun someone wishes to own for personal protection, or for any other reason. Who cares what color a pistol is? Only some anti-gun-rights bureaucrat trying to discourage as many citizens as possible from owning guns, that’s who.
Next thing you know, the government might be getting into the automobile business and telling people what kind of car they can own, or what kind of health care package they should have.
Oh, wait a minute…
Stabbings prove people, not firearms, are the problem
Meanwhile, a couple of high-profile stabbings – one in Maryland and the other in Snohomish County – clearly demonstrate that people don’t need guns in order to commit mayhem. (As my colleague Dan Bidstrup reports here, Great Britain is experiencing a wave of knife crime; violence that was not supposed to happen after the country banned handguns and clamped down on long gun ownership. So, the Brits have done something about this. Read his column.)
Three teens have been arrested in connection with the stabbing death of a Lynnwood teen in the small town of Sultan. This apparently was not a random attack. The crime was apparently captured, at least in part, by video surveillance cameras at local businesses.
Maryland authorities have arrested an Arlington teen identified as Jessika Brown, in the stabbing of 22-year-old Jimmy Lee Blank at a “hobo camp” near Cumberland, MD. Blank was stabbed nine times in the abdomen. Brown and an unidentified teen from New Jersey reportedly flagged down a motorist after the stabbing in order to get Blank to a hospital.
This stabbing reportedly occurred during a “drunken altercation” the night of June 16.
And finally, maybe this woman should be hired by WDFW!
Washington County, OR resident Miriam Sakewitz, 47, is in trouble in the Beaver State for violating a court order to stay away from rabbits. She was arrested June 16 at a Tigard hotel where she had bunnies “hopping around in her room,” the Associated Press and Seattle Times reported.
Sakewitz is obviously no ordinary animal lover. This woman has a talent that is being wasted. In October 2006, she got in trouble with Hillsboro police for having nearly 250 rabbits in her home, including about 100 dead ones in freezers and refrigerators. Sakewitz broke into the building where her bunnies were being kept in January 2007, stole them and headed for Chehalis, WA, where she kept about 130 rabbits at a horse farm and had a half-dozen in her car when she was busted. She was ordered not to own or control animals for five years.
Now, that just seems dumber than a doorknob.
The Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife should offer Sakewitz a job immediately. If she can grow rabbits by the bushel, think what she might be able to do for the state’s deer and elk herds. Turn that woman loose in the Columbia Basin with pheasants. Introduce her to grouse, chukar and quail.
No telling what she might accomplish at a trout or steelhead hatchery!
Indeed, Sakewitz has the earmarks of someone who might make a crackerjack game biologist; a person who could put the Evergreen State “back on the map” in terms of hunting opportunity we haven’t seen around here since the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Gone would be the hand-wringing about “shrinking game resources” and the need for shorter hunting seasons.
Heck, the Fish & Wildlife Commission is looking around for a new agency director.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe Oregon authorities have found a viable candidate for the job.
Visit with other Gun Rights Examiners:
For more info: Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association.
Comments
No sour grapes here, I've been to DC twice in my life and couldn't leave fast enough.
I am still hoping that Alan Gura will gather a few names and file a class action suite against Washington D.C. to have every conviction under the city's previous unconstitutional "law" expunged. Hundreds if not thousands of people charged under that law were illegally fined, jailed, deprived of property and had their civil rights violated. They may or may not have been classed as felons due to illegal convictions and deprived further of their rights. It offends my sense of justice for them to get away with violating laws that they swore to uphold and they continue to try to find ways to weasel around it to this day.
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