Free Republic

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683 D.C. Second Amendment Enforcement Act Passes House, Moves to Senate Wednesday, September 17, 2008 Fairfax, VA - The U.S. House of Representatives voted today to approve the National Rifle Association (NRA)-backed “Second Amendment Enforcement Act” in an overwhelming bi-partisan vote of 266-152. The Act, passed as an amendment to H.R. 6842, will overturn the District of Columbia’s gun control restrictions that defy the recent Supreme Court ruling by continuing to limit D.C. residents’ right to self-defense. This bill is necessary to enforce the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v....

D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson says he will propose regulations Tuesday that would legalize semi-automatic handguns in the District because the stopgap legislation the council passed in response to a Supreme Court ruling "would not stand up to judicial scrutiny." "The Supreme Court has spoken, and we have to act accordingly," he said. "We are still going to have a strong gun control law." Mr. Mendelson, at-large Democrat, said the bill will refine the city's definition of machine guns by using wording from other jurisdictions and the federal assault-weapons ban, which has since expired. The bill also will cap at...

Today Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, joined by members of the Council of the District of Columbia and Acting Attorney General Peter J. Nickles introduced new emergency and temporary legislation to further amend the District’s firearms laws. “This new legislation is the second step in the process to do all that we can to minimize handgun violence in the District,” said Mayor Fenty. “These actions will continue to protect our citizens from gun violence while respecting the Second Amendment.” “We believe that any legitimate concerns by Congress on District gun laws should satisfied by the new laws,” said Acting Attorney General...

WAUKEGAN -- Anti-gun forces counterattacked last month's proposal to the Lake County Board to support Second Amendment rights. The inalienable right to live a safe life trumps the right of any individual to own any and every kind of weapon, the speakers fired back in public comments to the board Tuesday. The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down local gun bans also stated that with the right to bear arms comes the responsibility to "keep guns out of the hands of criminals and insane individuals who will do harm and destruction on our communities," said Tom Vandenberg of...

www.gunowners.org/a091508.htmSep 2008 As the House Gets Ready to Vote on Repealing the DC Gun Ban -- Your Representative now needs to hear from you Gun Owners of America 8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102 Springfield, VA 22151 (703)321-8585 Monday, September 15, 2008 How quickly things can change. Last week, the early reports indicated that the Childers bill to repeal the DC gun ban, HR 6691, was going to be a "cake walk" in the House of Representatives. But now, DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) has managed to get an alternative, anti-gun bill onto the floor of the House. Her bill...

A House committee approved a bill yesterday that would allow D.C. officials to write their own gun laws, as D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and others tried to forestall more drastic congressional intervention. But Norton (D) acknowledged that the real showdown on the District's gun laws will come on the House floor, probably next week. There, a tougher bill that would eliminate most D.C. gun regulations probably will be offered as a substitute for Norton's measure. The full House will probably approve the tougher measure, according to congressional sources. "I wish I could tell you this is the end of...

“A person does not have the right under the Second Amendment, or under any other provision of the Constitution, to possess a machinegun. A person does not have a right, under the Second Amendment, or under any other provision of the Constitution, to possess a rifle with a barrel shorter than 16 inches that the person has not registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.” (Instructions to the jury in U.S. v. Gilbert) In the months since the US Supreme Court’s landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, there have been over a dozen rulings by judges...

A Fruitvale man whose guns were returned to him Tuesday wants a court to invalidate the search warrant under which they were taken 10 months ago. Bill Martin, owner of A-1 Repossessions, also wants about $50,000 of his legal bills paid. Martin watched from above, about 75 yards away, on the Riverside Parkway walkway Tuesday morning as Mesa County Sheriff’s Department officials transferred the weapons from one truck to another truck that he hired to transport the weapons. Martin’s wife, Shelley, and a gunsmith who is familiar with the weapons oversaw the transfer, which took place inside the gated employee...

This past June, in a 5-to-4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court struck down a ban on handgun ownership in the nation's capital and ruled that the District's law requiring all firearms in the home to be locked violated the Second Amendment. But the Supreme Court's finding of a Second Amendment right to have a handgun in the home does not mean that it is a wise decision to own a gun or to keep it easily accessible. Deciding whether to own a gun entails balancing potential benefits and risks. One of the risks for which...

District of Columbia v. Heller was historic, the first Supreme Court decision to clearly hold that the Second Amendment right to arms was an individual one not linked to militia service. But it was historic for another reason: the sheer number of mistakes made in the dissenters' opinions. Given that all four dissenters co-signed the Stevens and Breyer dissenting opinions, this means that the mistakes must have escaped, not only four members of the highest court in the land, but their sixteen research clerks! Case in point: Justice Stevens' dissent claims that he holds true to the Court's earlier, 1939,...

The conventional wisdom among Republicans is that since America is a center-right country, John McCain, a center-right candidate, can win the presidency simply by stressing Barack Obama’s record as, according to National Journal, the most leftwing senator last year. But Republicans should remember this: John Kerry and John Edwards were respectively ranked by NJ as the most liberal and second-most liberal senators in 2004 and came up a mere 118,000 Ohioans shy of victory. This suggests that while playing the “liberal card” is certainly a necessary strategy, it may not be enough in a year when the GOP brand is...

Lawyers who won the historic Second Amendment gun rights case in the Supreme Court — District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290) — on Monday asked a federal judge to award them more than $3.5 million for attorneys’ fees, plus $13,215.30 for expenses and court costs. In a motion and memorandum filed with U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, the attorneys said that they had achieved “one of the most profound and important victories available under our system of justice.” Their argument also suggested that this was a David vs. Goliath clash, with the attorneys on their far side far outnumbered...

WASHINGTON — The man whose lawsuit overturned Washington's handgun ban has successfully registered his revolver, ending a more than 30-year wait to keep the weapon in his home.

Anti-gun hysterics have a new spokesman: Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. I had barely finished writing about anxiety disorders over guns, and "His Honor" opens his mouth and makes my case. Mayor Daley was reacting to the Supreme Court decision striking down the D.C. gun ban, and the likelihood that a similar challenge will soon come against the Chicago ban. Now, some of his rhetoric is the same tired old stuff we've heard before; he called the high court's ruling a "frightening decision" and predicted a "return to the days of the Wild West." The Mayor should be so lucky...

A homeowner suddenly confronted by a knife-wielding intruder reaches desperately for a handgun with which to defend himself. But the firearm lies disassembled and unloaded in a drawer, useless. Before the homeowner can reassemble and load his pistol, and confront his attacker, the assailant strikes, and strikes again — with fatal results. The real cause of the homeowner’s death in this scenario? That he had the misfortune to reside in the District of Columbia. For besides banning most semiautomatic pistols (the type of firearm that most knowledgeable Americans prefer for personal self-defense), the District requires that all registered handguns possessed...

In one of the first lower court rulings since the Supreme Court handed down the weakly-worded Heller Decision, a government restriction on firearms has been upheld. Steven Mullenix, a federal firearms licensee (FFL), was denied permission to import German WWII replica rifles by the notoriously anti-gun Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE). The BATFE used arguments from the 1968 Gun Control Act to argue that the replica BD-44 held no "sporting purpose" and therefore Mr. Mullenix could not legally import them. In return Mullenix sued the BATFE for infringing upon his right to keep and bear arms, calling...

In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court on June 26 struck down the District of Columbia's 32-year old ban on handgun ownership. I am shocked and outraged at the ease with which the court has turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the reality of handgun violence. As no other court has done, the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in keeping with the conservative National Rifle Association's interpretation that the amendment gives individuals the right to keep loaded handguns in their homes for protection. The 1976 D.C. handgun ban was enacted as...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The man whose lawsuit overturned Washington's handgun ban has successfully registered his revolver, ending a more than 30-year wait to keep the weapon in his home. Dick Heller walked out of D.C. police headquarters Monday, clutching a yellow firearms registration certificate stamped "approved." He gave the thumbs-up sign, grinned and said, "Victory!" Heller was among the first people to seek a gun permit under new rules adopted after the Supreme Court struck down the city's 32-year-old handgun ban in June. Heller was the plaintiff in that case.

"Machine guns are not in common use by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes and therefore fall within the category of dangerous and unusual weapons that the government can prohibit for individual use. Furthermore, Fincher has not directly attacked the federal registration requirements on firearms, and we doubt that any such attack would succeed in light of Heller."

The Supreme Court ruled in June that provisions of Washington, D.C.'s gun laws are unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the city has responded with new regulations that are a flagrant attempt to circumvent the court's decision. It's time for Congress to use the power granted to it in the Constitution to "exercise exclusive legislation" in the District and uphold its residents' constitutional rights. It can do so by passing the District of Columbia Personal Protection Act now pending in Congress, with a few adjustments. This bill, introduced on July 31 with 57 cosponsors, would prevent D.C. from passing regulations that discourage the private...