They Want to Shoot Back D.C. Citizens Taking Aim At Nation’s Toughest Gun Laws

The Hill ^ | 3/19/2003 | Duncan Spencer

[2nd_Amendment_Defender]

They’re suing the District of Columbia, and they’re shootin’ mad.

All five of the plaintiffs in an unusual suit before U.S. District Court Judge Emmett G. Sullivan say they want to be able to defend themselves inside their homes against criminals — but can’t because of the city’s gun laws, which are among the strictest in the nation.

While D.C. gun laws have been progressively tightened, local criminals rarely lack firepower when they feel they need it, either to wipe out enemies in the drug business, or to threaten robbery victims. Despite the laws, the closure rate for homicides (most of them by gun) remains the biggest failure of D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey’s tenure.

Two local lawyers, Robert Levy and Gene Healy, have now challenged the law. It bans citizens who lacked a handgun license before 1976 from owning a handgun without a special permit. (Such permits are virtually impossible to obtain.) It also bans the keeping of a rifle or shotgun in a home unless it is fully disassembled and unloaded. They maintain that such provisions are clearly unconstitutional.

Levy and Healy both work for the Cato Institute. But they emphasize that the think tank has not underwritten their project. Both of them feel the time has come for a serious challenge to laws that leave citizens unable to defend themselves with a firearm against intruders, while emboldened armed criminals have little to fear.

From the point of view of some angry citizens, this is a very personal legal exercise.

“On the 12th of February one of the drug dealers tried to enter my home,” said Shelly P. (who asked that her full name not be used.) “It took 20 minutes for the police to get there.”’

She lives in Northeast Capitol Hill, where police admit they have been unable to stop open-air drug markets. Shelly said as soon as she moved in and began to become active in the community, she found “the time it took police to respond was horrific.” Moreover, calling the cops drew unwanted attention. Her car was later vandalized as it sat parked near her home.

In contrast to D.C., Shelly says, her former state of residence, Texas, not only allows citizens to have handguns, rifles and shotguns in their homes, but also regularly holds citizens blameless who use the weapons against intruders in self-defense.

The other plaintiffs were chosen to represent a wide array of the community. Tom Palmer of Northwest is gay. Dick Heller of Southeast is a security guard who carries a gun by day on his job at the Thurgood Marshall Federal Courts Building, but cannot have a weapon at home. Gillian St. Lawrence of Northwest keeps a shotgun in her home — but must keep it in pieces. Tracy Ambeau lives in Shaw and George Lyon in Northwest.

The city has already responded to the suit, asking that it be dismissed on the grounds that the Second Amendment, which asserts the right of citizens to “keep and bear arms,” under current case law does not apply. “Such a motion is routine,” Healy says.

Does he think the case stands a chance? “We think we have a good shot,” he adds.

[2nd_Amendment_Defender]

This article has a negative tone toward the 2nd Amendment.

I hope the lawsuit goes in their favor.

[2nd_Amendment_Defender]

To the bang list ...

[Billy_bob_bob]

This whole issue can be best understood by answering a question: Are the people of Washington, D.C. citizens who are allowed to be armed, and to use weapons to defend themselves, their loved ones and their property; or are they slaves who are not allowed to be armed, and who are not allowed to defend themselves, their loved ones or their property?

This is the basic issue at stake here; citizens or slaves. Your choice. Allow government to take away your right to bear arms and to use them to defend youself, and you lose your status as a citizen. You are now a voluntary slave of the state, dependant upon them for your very survival. Feel any safer yet? Ask the residents of D.C. how it has worked out there.

[Amazed1953]

Good for them. I hope they win it big time.

[lowbridge]

The city has already responded to the suit, asking that it be dismissed on the grounds that the Second Amendment, which asserts the right of citizens to “keep and bear arms,” under current case law does not apply.

Amazing.

[lonestar]

I was in a conversation yesterday when the story reported on CNN was retold about the Iraqis living in caves who have a son named Dick Cheney and if they have another, he will be named George W. Bush.

Later, the conversation turned to guns and the "lib" in the group was saying how stupid it is to have guns. I said, "I'm afraid of guns but people who are not permited to have them end up living in caves with kids named Dick Cheney and George W. Bush."

[dagnabbit]

Shotgun here. Shotgun case there. Disassembled.

[ysoitanly]

Y'know - if I were going to show my intelligence, I think I'd promote anti-gun support while the terror warning is at orange and we're actively at war. /sarcasm. Of course, if we were at war with France, I would insist that every American who bought Mr. Bubble be watched closely.

[VeniVidiVici]

LOL! I gotta remember this one.

[lentulusgracchus]

"I'm afraid of guns but people who are not permited to have them end up living in caves with kids named Dick Cheney and George W. Bush."

LOL -- great line!

But the picture is even more illuminating.....think about it, if you are totally helpless like they are, you wind up pinning your hopes on politicians. IOW, clutching the knees and feet of the mighty, and hoping that they'll be good to you, like the people in the cave.

Damn.

[GOPJ]

Organized crime won't give up the billion dollar business of selling guns. In DC, organized crime families sell cheap guns at inflated prices because of "gun control." Also, the victims can't fight back, which helps keep the climate chaotic -- a real help for criminals.

Do the liberals know who stands with them, and why?

While D.C. gun laws have been progressively tightened, local criminals rarely lack firepower when they feel they need it, either to wipe out enemies in the drug business, or to threaten robbery victims

[STONEWALLS]

"“It took 20 minutes for the police to get there.”’

...a friend of my wife's got shot in the face....took 30 minutes for the ambulance to get there....the driver said: "I'm sorry it took so long but we only got one ambulance in this precinct running tonight...the others are broke down...we can't get spare parts"...translation:...DCs credit rating was so bad that suppliers wanted cash in advance.

....two gang leaders were convicted of murder last month...one for 19 counts of 1st degree homicide, the other for 11....the jury deadlocked on whether to give the death penalty.

.....the mayor of DC forgot to file for re-election so he had to circulate petitions to get his name on the ballot.....among those the "signing" the petition were Frank Sinatra, Saint Paul the First, and Prince Charles plus page after page of other "signatures" all written in the same hand.

......2nd Ward circulated Petitions of Secession to try and leave DC and become part of Maryland....Maryland said "what makes you think we want you?"

......Marion Berry and his posse ran that city into the ground.....it's becoming more dangerous and ungovernable every day.....anybody who lives there and DOESN'T have a gun is crazy....in some parts of town it's every man for himself after 10 o'clock at night....

Good luck to everyone!

Stonewalls

[illumini]

THEY CAN PULL MY COLD DEAD FINGERS OFF THE TRIGGER before I comply with such laws.

[Ancesthntr]

THEY CAN PULL MY COLD DEAD FINGERS OFF THE TRIGGER before I comply with such laws.

When they get my guns, my body temperature will be substantially lower than that of said guns.

[an amused spectator]

Sullivan is one of the "Magnificent Seven", a group of Clinton appointees who are a foreshadowing of the Democrats' vision for the federal judiciary - a politically correct oligarchy beholden to no-one but their Democrat puppetmasters.

Sullivan, Emmet G.

Born June 4, 1947, in Washington, DC

Federal Judicial Service:
U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia
Nominated by William J. Clinton on March 22, 1994, to a seat vacated by Louis F. Oberdorfer; Confirmed by the Senate on June 15, 1994, and received commission on June 16, 1994.

Education:
Howard University, B.A., 1968

Howard University School of Law, J.D., 1971

Professional Career:
Law clerk, Neighborhood Legal Services Program, Washington, DC, 1971-1972
Law clerk, Hon. James Washington, Superior Court of the District of Columbia, 1972-1973
Private practice, Washington, DC, 1974-1984
Associate judge, Superior Court of the District of Columbia, 1984-1992
Associate judge, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, 1992-1994

Race or Ethnicity: African American

Gender: Male

[an amused spectator]

Clinton Appointees Meet Privately

By Jerry Seper

---

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
7/5/99

The eight federal judges appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. District Court in Washington meet privately every month in closed-door sessions that other jurists believe are improper and call into question the court's impartiality. "I cannot imagine any legitimate reason for them to meet together once a month, even socially," said one veteran courthouse official familiar with the sessions. "It's not only in bad taste, it certainly has the appearance of impropriety. It's hard to imagine any rationale for these meetings.

Another court official said they "reek with impropriety." Concern among courthouse officials about the meetings, which are described in e-mail addressed monthly to each of the eight judges, comes at a time that Chief U.S. District Judge Norma Holloway Johnson is being publicly criticized for selectively assigning criminal cases against friends and associates of Mr. Clinton's to judges the president has appointed. None of the eight Clinton-appointed judges, all of whom were named to the bench between 1994 to 1998, would comment on the meetings or their content.

"I have no comment to make on these matters," said U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr., the only one of the eight who personally answered a telephone call. A spokeswoman for Judge Richard W. Roberts returned a call but said only that the judge "declined comment."

Four judges appointed by other presidents, both Republican and Democrat, said the meetings have been taking place for some time, although specific topics are not known. They question the propriety of the sessions and lament what they described as the "loss of collegiality" when the judges fail to come together as a group "which the others do often."

"The Clinton appointees have confirmed that they meet together, and we know they do, but where they go and what they discuss I just don't know," said one judge. "But a very important part of what we do here is our collegiality. We all come with political viewpoints but we try to leave politics behind. Unfortunately, the Clinton appointees have gone off on their own."

The nature of the isolation, another judge said, was punctuated by an e-mail message sent to all of the judges inviting them to a birthday party for U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina, a 1994 Clinton appointee. The message asked the judges to guess Judge Urbina's age for a prize but excluded members of the "Magnificent Seven" a name the first seven Clinton appointees had used to describe their group before Judge Roberts' 1998 appointment.

There are 23 judges at the federal courthouse, including the eight named by Mr. Clinton. Five were appointed by President Carter and five by President Reagan. Four were named by President Johnson and one was picked by President Nixon. None of the other judges hold separate meetings, courthouse sources said.

Questions of impropriety at the courthouse have drawn the attention of the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, is considering whether to begin an investigation or call for hearings to resolve the issue.

During a confirmation hearing yesterday for two Justice Department officials, Mr. Hatch described as "deeply troubling" reports that Judge Johnson had bypassed the court's random case assignment procedures "by taking the unusual step of handpicking" judges appointed by Mr. Clinton to hear cases involving Webster L. Hubbell and Charles Yah Lin Trie. "Even if deviations from the district court's random case assignment procedures are technically permitted by local rule, I share the concern that has been expressed by other judges on the court that these assignments will damage the public's confidence that these cases were impartially adjudicated," he said.

Committee member Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican, echoed Mr. Hatch's concerns, adding that as a former prosecutor he was "stunned" by the Johnson assignments. He said it "might be necessary" for the committee to investigate the matter to restore the public's confidence.

On Tuesday, Judge Johnson defended her decision not to follow the court's traditional random-assignment process when she assigned the Hubbell and Trie cases to U.S. District Judges Paul L. Friedman and James Robertson, both Clinton appointees. She said the cases were assigned to "highly capable federal judges" and that "politics was not and is never a factor in our case assignments."

She said the chief judge has the right to assign "protracted and complex cases" when it is deemed necessary, noting that "my predecessors and I have used this assignment system to enable our court to expeditiously handle high-profile criminal cases with their unique demands on judicial resources."

"It is the responsibility of the chief judge to move the docket as expeditiously as possible. That is all that was intended by these assignments," the judge said. Some judges questioned whether the Hubbell and Trie cases, both of which ended in plea agreements, could be considered protracted or complex. They said several high-profile and lengthy trials have been assigned through the random-selection process.

Judge Friedman, who has declined comment on the matter, threw out several charges against Trie brought by the Justice Department's campaign finance task force. Trie later pleaded guilty when the rulings were overturned by the federal appeals court.

Judge Robertson was overturned in June when the appeals court reinstated a felony charge against Hubbell for making false statements to conceal his work on a fraudulent Arkansas land project. The court said the judge erred when he dismissed the first count of a 15-count indictment brought by Kenneth W. Starr.

[an amused spectator]

From the files of Alamo-Girl:

New York Times 8/19/00 "…..A lawsuit brought by Linda R. Tripp against the government has been taken away from a judge who has been critical of the Clinton administration and given to a judge appointed by President Clinton. Three federal judges appointed by Mr. Clinton took the lawsuit away from the first judge, Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court, a Reagan appointee, and randomly assigned the case by computer. The computer assigned it to Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, one of the three judges on the calendar committee who had taken the case away from Judge Lamberth. …….. The transfer of the case drew strong objections from lawyers for Mrs. Tripp, whose secret tape recordings of Monica S. Lewinsky led to the impeachment crisis. ……. Last September when Mrs. Tripp's lawyers filed the lawsuit, they asked that the case be given to Judge Lamberth on the ground that it was related to a suit already before him involving hundreds of former appointees from Republican administrations whose F.B.I. files had been collected by the Clinton White House. ……."

===============================

Associated Press 8/17/00 Pete Yost "…..Three federal judges appointed by President Clinton took a lawsuit filed by Linda Tripp away from a Reagan appointee, and randomly assigned the case by computer to one of themselves, court records show. The three, Emmet Sullivan, Paul Friedman and Gladys Kessler, run the calendar committee that controls the docket at the U.S. District Courthouse. In a five-page order dated Aug. 11, they said the year-old Tripp suit never should have been directed to U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth. The court sent a copy of the ruling to Tripp's lawyers Wednesday. …… Sullivan is now overseeing the lawsuit. It ended up in his hands as a result of the calendar committee's decision to put the Tripp case through a computer process that randomly selects judges for cases. ……."

[ought-six]

You wrote: "Are the people of Washington, D.C. citizens who are allowed to be armed, and to use weapons to defend themselves, their loved ones and their property; or are they slaves who are not allowed to be armed, and who are not allowed to defend themselves, their loved ones or their property? This is the basic issue at stake here; citizens or slaves."

They are no longer citizens, yet they are not yet slaves. Rather, they are subjects of the autocratic, totalitarian DC government. That is America's future unless We, the People, resist it. It's time the U.S. Supreme Court got involved and ruled on the 2nd Amendment, following the intent and original application of the Constitution, not the re-write that the liberals and socialists have tried to pawn off as law.

[demkicker]

Wow! Thanks for the information [I guess :)]. The depth of the Clinton corruption has no end...

[Gritty]

The eight federal judges appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. District Court in Washington meet privately every month in closed-door sessions that other jurists believe are improper and call into question the court's impartiality.

Clinton. The gift that just keeps on giving....