Front Sight, Press

House Votes to Weaken D.C. Gun Control Law (from the Associated Press)
WASHINGTON — A District of Columbia requirement that guns kept at home be unloaded and disassembled would be repealed under a plan approved by the House on Thursday.
City residents now can own firearms — mostly rifles and shotguns — if the weapons are registered. They must be kept at home and be disassembled or locked. Business owners may have loaded firearms at their businesses.

Woo Hoo! At last the oppressed “citizens” (or should that be “serfs”) of Washington D.C. no longer have to keep their shotguns disassembled in their own homes, assuming, of course, that the Senate ratifies the bill which is far from a done deal. The D.C. handgun ban is a scandal and should be a source of profound embarrassment to every freedom loving American. Yet, “every cloud has a silver lining” and the draconian Washington D.C. handgun ban is no exception. As long as it lasts, it stands as a monument to the utter failure of radical gun control schemes. Throughout the course of the ban, Washington D.C. has consistently remained at or near the top of the list for major American cities with the highest rates of murder and firearms crime. Were it not such a profound violation of the civil rights of so many people, you could almost make the case to let the D.C. ban stand as it serves as such a perfect object lesson in the stupidity and impotence of handgun control.

And the handgun ban in D.C. has been such a success! From 1976 (the year the ban was enacted) to 2001, the District’s homicide rate climbed 200 percent, while the national rate grew 12 percent. Perhaps we should think long and hard before doing away with such superb advertising.

One might think that in this day and age when terrorists may well be walking our streets, that government would welcome armed, law-abiding and trained citizens to help cover the gaps that our thinly stretched law enforcement and military can’t cover, but I guess that’s just too logical. The Israelis do precisely that. Israeli Police Inspector General, Shlomo Aharonisky said, “There’s no question that weapons in the hands of the public have prevented acts of terror or stopped them.” But, I guess, the Israelis know nothing about fighting terrorism.

The people of Washington D.C. have rights. They have the right to peaceably assemble, to speak freely, to worship or not in the way they see fit, to be reasonably secure in their homes and persons, to refuse self incrimination, and they have the right to keep and bear arms for self defense.