Tim Inwood gopguy63@yahoo.com Tim Inwood Archive & Bio

August 4, 2008

Dick Heller Sues Recalcitrant Washington, D.C. Again

In the days following June 26th the city of Washington, D.C. made very clear how unhappy they were with the decision the Supreme Court handed them in the Heller case. The public face put forward by Mayor Adrian Fenty was fairly contemptuous and defiant, but he begrudgingly said he would comply with the ruling. On July 16th they unveiled the new gun statute for the city. In so doing, they made clear they were going to do as little as possible to comply with the Supreme Court order. It was a rather foolish action to rewrite the law as they did, as they put themselves back in the position of being sued by the same man for the same reasons, in just over a month.

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When Dick Heller was victorious in June, he and the citizens of Washington had every reason to hope and believe their rights would be restored. However, the city had other plans. The District decided to only barely modify their handgun law to squeak by. In the city’s view the thirty-two year old handgun ban had not died, it just had a heart attack and was still clinging to life, with their support. Some of the provisions kept are clearly at odds with the Supreme Court ruling.

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The city, knowing they had to give something, said they would allow registration of revolvers and single shot pistols, but kept their ban on semiautomatic firearms. You see, the District has a ridiculous provision in their law saying any self-loader capable of accepting a 12 shot magazine is a machine gun.  As any magazine manufacturer can fabricate such an item, this rule effectively outlaws all semiautomatic firearms in the city. The District of Columbia recognizes this fact and has told the citizens if they bring in a semiautomatic pistol for registration, it will be confiscated and they will eventually be prosecuted for possessing a machine gun. This provision alone was bait for new legal action.

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The Court said, “The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of arms that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose. The prohibition extends, moreover, to the home, where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute. Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated Constitutional rights, banning from the home the most preferred firearm in the nation to keep and use for protection of one’s home and family, would fail constitutional muster.”

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According to the Supreme Court, if a firearm is in common use by the American people, it is protected. Since 73 percent of all handgun sales last year were of semiautomatic pistols, it would be hard to argue they are not in common use in the United States. It is pretty clear if the District Court follows Justice Scalia’s comments, they will strike down the cities provision on semiautomatics.

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The city also kept their ridiculous provision that the firearm must be locked, disassembled or in some way rendered inoperable. Their concession was that the firearm could be unlocked and loaded when the owner felt "impending danger." Ah yes, I can see it now. With trembling hands as the adrenaline kicks in, some poor victim trying to get the lock off their firearms in the wake of having heard the door kicked in. This is in outright defiance of the very comments made by the Supreme Court concerning this issue. "We must also address the District’s requirement (as applied to respondent’s handgun) that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times," the Court wrote. "This makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional."

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Despite the clear wording the city decided to just barely adjust their law and it is clear they intend to push the envelope of the issue to the point of it tearing apart. Again, bait for legal action. It is the sort of rebellious behavior against a court order that in the past would have seen the National Guard or Federal Marshals sent in to enforce the law. I truly expect them to not only get slapped down on this point, but also slapped hard by the courts.

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With those offensive provisions in place in the new law, and the whole insolent attitude of the city towards having to change their law, it is not a great surprise that when Dick Heller tried to register his Colt 1911 semiautomatic pistol in mid-July, he was told “no.”

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This was quite moronic on behalf of the city and Fenty, as it assured the new lawsuit would be coming quickly. The very wording of the Supreme Court was that the city must allow Mr. Heller to “register his handgun.” Clearly his Colt 1911 is a handgun and to refuse to register it is clearly in contempt of a Supreme Court ruling. Again, I would love to see Federal Marshals sent in to arrest Fenty for violating Dick Heller’s civil rights. Rights, I might add, the court ordered Fenty and company to respect. “In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful fire-arm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense,” the Court insisted. “Assuming that Heller is not disqualified from the exercise of Second Amendment rights, the District must permit him to register his handgun and must issue him a license to carry it in the home.”

Mayor Adrian Fenty was questioned about what happened to Mr. Heller and he told The Washington Post that if the people did not like the new law, they could sue him. For his arrogance and stupidity he has gotten himself what he asked for, another lawsuit. Really, this comes as no surprise, as he has left Dick Heller no other recourse, and since the Supreme Court ruling, the city government of DC has practically begged to be sued again. Mr. Heller has been joined by Absalom F. Jordan, Jr. and Amy McVey, also residents of Washington DC, as plaintiffs in the new case.

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Many of the points of contention were really addressed by the Supreme Court in June, and I expect the plaintiffs to prevail. In fact, I suspect the District Court will take a dim view of the contemptuous behavior of Fenty and his minions since the June 26th ruling was handed down. However there are some new issues that do arise in the new suit. For instance, the arbitrary cost of registering the handgun is left up to chief of police, with no guidelines. So is the cost of ballistic fingerprinting of the handgun. The city might well make this fee artificially high to discourage gun ownership. Such abuse is not beyond question considering the city’s past history. Particularly of concern is the “Catch-22” of having to transport your unregistered handgun to the District’s offices to register the gun and facing a possible rejection and arrest for illegal gun possession. The complaint itself is eight pages long and I am including a link so you can peruse the details.

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Having read the complaint I expect, if the courts follow the law, that the plaintiffs will be victorious and in the end the City of Washington, D.C. will again eat crow. Mayor Adrian Fenty has not acquitted himself well these past couple of years. In the past two months he has reduced himself to something comic on the pathetic scale. In my eyes, he has become something akin to the Knight who blocks Arthur’s passage in the Monty Python film The Holy Grail. The knight, having been struck down and lost both legs and arms to Arthur’s sword does not see the futility of his position as a limbless stump, and declares, “Tis only a flesh wound,” looking quite ridiculous when clearly beat.

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Mayor Fenty, though he does not see it, clearly is in the same position. I think he will come to regret his intransigence, as it is very clear to me that the courts will wallop him hard this time for his scornful defiance. For several years I lived in the Washington, D.C. area. It has been my sad observation that city is usually run by a bunch of people who do not have the collective intelligence to powder a baby’s rump. The people consistently either elect the corrupt or the incompetent and occasionally cretins who possess both unfortunate qualities. Sadly the citizens suffer, but as the Democrat Party has a stranglehold on the town, I don’t expect to see much change. In the meantime, civil rights are still crushed under the incompetence of the city’s government. Let us hope in the wake of this new suit the city will be forced to obey not only the courts, but our Constitution as well.

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I would like to note one last passing observation: Is it not curious how little attention the mainstream media is paying to this story? It is a blatant violation of a Supreme Court order and the rape of the civil rights of citizens in our nation’s capital! If this were any other civil right I suspect this would be wall-to-wall coverage hounding the mayor to obey the law. Liberal bias? You decide.