DC v. Heller: When life hands you crap, you turn it into a way to make non-felons voluntarily turn in their firearms.
Or at least that’s the theory. I’m not really getting any good coverage from the news. Mark Segraves of WTOP radio is jumping through the hoops and blogging about the whole incident.
At 7 a.m. Thursday, the Metropolitan Police Department will open its doors at Headquarters and begin taking applications for permits. If you already own an illegal handgun, you’re in luck. Because of the 90 day amnesty program, you can bring your gun (unloaded and wrapped up) to the police and apply for a permit. If, like most people, you don’t have a gun, you can begin the permit process, but good luck getting a gun. Without a gun store, or someone to transfer the gun, it won’t happen legally.
But I’m going to try.
It’s important to note, I have no desire to own a gun. In fact, once I get the gun, I’ll turn it over to police or sell it back to the gun store where I bought it. I simply want to walk through the entire process to see how it does - or doesn’t - work.
Oh jeez, someone needs to take this poor guy to the range.
He does report this from seeing Dick Heller in line:
I’m in line with Dick Heller, the guy who brought the lawsuit. He has been told he can bring his revolver from Maryland and register it, but not his semi-automatic. “The city has rejected me again,”
If you’re scratching your head over the title I chose for this post, well, I got it from Say Uncle. He links to this story at the WaPo:
An officer from the gun unit will meet the applicant at the door and take temporary possession of the gun to ensure safety at headquarters.
Because, you know, all those violent felons are just begging for a chance to shoot up police headquarters.
Officers will tag the gun and conduct ballistics tests before returning the gun to the owner. Paperwork indicating that registration is in process will be provided.
That last sentence there leads me to believe that the police will hold on to the firearms for weeks until they are reluctantly forced to return them. If I’m guessing right, after the police fingerprint you, take photos of you, take down the information from your DC issued drivers license and take a crowbar to your wallet, the police still won’t let you walk out of there with your firearm. Nope, they’ll hold your firearm for a useless and expensive “ballistics fingerprinting” and you’ll be issued “paperwork indicating that registration is in process” that you can use to protect yourself from crime. Remember to show your paperwork to the criminal that forces themselves into your home.
NRA: The Truth About Ballistic “Fingerprinting” 8:59 min.
Click here to view the video in a pop-up window | Direct link
I also want to note that in Mark Segraves story, he covers the fact that there are no Federal Firearms License holders that are ready, willing, and able to facilitate the transfer of handguns to DC residents. Since we now have NICS, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, is there any reason to keep the antiquated federal law on the books that bar a resident of one state from buying a handgun in another jurisdiction? I’d be far happier if that was struck down rather than having another messy and drawn-out court case that forces DC to approve a firearms dealer in a bricks and mortar storefront.
SayUncle » Regarding Heller’s Denial Says :
[...] Heller 2: The city has rejected me [...]
2008-07-17 10:55 PermalinkRAH Says :
DC residents are not dumb. Why bother, the law will change in 90 days? The ballistic requirement and all the hoops are too much trouble. Those who have guns, the good guys and bad guys, will just keep them in their homes un registered.
There are a lot of decent folks who have handguns for over 30 years in DC. All the elderly may have them since the 1960’s. Others may have been given one or had bought one while a resident in another state.
DC has shown they do not want registered guns and that is what they will get. All those guns in homes will stay unregistered.
IF DC were smart they would have made it easier so they have good records on who has a gun. Now they can languish in ignorance.
2008-07-17 11:27 PermalinkGregory Markle Says :
So what happens if they, for whatever convoluted reasons the DC overlords might come up with, reject your application? Can you legally take possession of your handgun to once again place it “in compliance” with DC’s laws or are they going to try confiscation at that point. My money is on the latter…
2008-07-17 13:18 PermalinkHarold Says :
“Because, you know, all those violent felons are just begging for a chance to shoot up police headquarters.”
Actually, if memory serves, there was a pretty nasty bloodbath in a D.C. police station, one FBI agent was killed along with the perp.
It was just supposed to be a “normal” meeting of some sort, but the perp had other ideas….
BTW, thanks for the GoogleFu in finding Heller’s initial 2002 application!
2008-07-17 13:53 PermalinkStandard Mischief Says :
Harold, you’re welcome.
The bloodbath that you are talking about is likely the November 22, 1994 shooting by Bennie Lee Lawson Jr. Unpossable because handgun ownership was banned at the time, Bennie had been investigated by the police for a triple homicide but was cleared. However, apparently his fellow gang members thought he was a snitch. To redeem himself, he decided to kill a cop. Records conflict out there on the tubez of web, but this RKBA friendly page, run by people of the gun that know what they are talking about when they talk guns, claims that it was a full-auto MAC-11. Not exactly the typical homicide in DC.
I guess I said what I said because it’s pretty absurd that a resident would go to the station to register their firearm and not be able to take it back home right away after passing a (Brady bunch approved) NICS check. Instead, they must turn over their weapon of self-defense, get fingerprinted, pass a written test that we know nothing about in advance, bring passport photos, pay a fee and then leave with paperwork saying the process was “in the works”, while the police recorded the serial number, shot some rounds through the firearm, and saves some shell casings in a futile and expensive attempt to match a homeowners firearm to an unsolved crime.
While the District resident is busy pleading to the state for permission to exercise a right, the real criminals with firearms continue to roam the District. None of these barriers that Fenty and company have thrown up will do one bit to stop crime in the District. They just want to have the strictest gun laws in the nation that will pass court scrutiny.
Had the police planned to return the weapons with a temporary permit after the owner passed a NICS check, I would have never harped on DC for their actions.
2008-07-17 17:50 PermalinkStandard Mischief » Heller: Just call me the Waffle News Network Says :
[...] first I jumped to the conclusion that DC would hold permit requesters’ firearms for a few weeks, just because they can, when they brought them in for the permit [...]
2008-07-18 17:33 Permalink