When I made the decision to move to Washington, D.C., I made it based on a variety of reasons: the desire to live in an urban area, the desire to be able to make use of an excellent public transportation system. Frankly, keeping my handguns wasn’t high on my list. Truthfully, they spend most of their time locked in my gun cabinet. I was planning on selling them, now, I don’t have to.
For the last week and a half, I’ve been checking CNN.com every day for news on the Court’s rulings: apparently, they have a sense of the dramatic. This was easily the most anticipated ruling, and it came on what I believe is their last day before adjourning until October.
Pretty much, I think the ruling is a good one. Reasonable restrictions on gun ownership are okay — I think everyone will agree that convicted felons shouldn’t be able to legally own a gun — but denying a law-abiding citizen the ability to defend themselves with a handgun class of firearm isn’t in the government’s purview. There’s nothing in it about carrying concealed firearms, and in this city in particular, there probably won’t be much: at my part-time job, I walk past a Secret Service office on my way to the Metro, for example, and our store is like, what, four blocks from the White House?
Of course, the ruling isn’t the end of everything, there’s still some legal wrangling to be worked out. Adrian Fenty, DC’s — well, and mine, now — mayor has given the MPD twenty-one days to come up with a gun registration program. There’s more coverage on what this means for the city on The Washington Post, one article in particular, about the city’s attorney general commenting on what steps the city would take to comply if the ban were found unconstitutional, I can sadly not find. Essentially, it involves the police setting up a registration program and the District’s lawmakers coming up with some legislation determining who can own a handgun and how they would go about doing so.
However, I did enjoy reading one columnist’s take on the ruling, Raw Fisher.
I think, to be on the safe side, I’ll get in touch with my old boss’s gun-store owning buddy and see if he can keep my handguns on consignment until the legalities in the District are squared away. So far in my life, the only time I’ve spent in a police cruiser has been voluntarily, and I’d like that not to change. Because, see, I’m law abiding.