DC Goes Down Kicking and Screaming When it Comes to Supreme Court Compliance

I have been busy lately, so I will let one of my favorite websites - Reason.com - do the heavy lifting for me. The short version goes like this: The House of Representatives are considering passing a bill that would put Washington DC in full compliance with the Heller decision without the need for costly and drawn out legal battles. By exercising their right over the District, Congress would remove the burdensome registration process and remove semi-auto handguns and rifles from their current disingenuous classification as "machine guns."

Naturally, the rabid anti-gun forces in DC are throwing a fit complete with the frequent lies and mistruths needed to scare citizens into strict gun regulation. From the Reason article:

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) argues that the bill would allow people to carry "loaded AK-47s or .50-caliber sniper assault weapons openly in cars or in person," which would pose a "palpable risk...to the public safety of our residents" and create a challenge for "federal law enforcement and security officials in this city, where two presidents have been killed with handguns." D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier warns, "In attempted and successful assassinations around the world, the first step in attacking a motorcade is frequently to take out the security detail with semiautomatic and automatic firearms."

I'm not sure where to begin. The only provision of the bill that deals with carrying weapons applies in the gun owner's "dwelling house or place of business or on other land possessed by that person." There's nothing about carrying loaded guns in public. AK-47s and all other "automatic firearms" would remain prohibited in any case. The two assassinated presidents to whom Norton refers are Abraham Lincoln, who was killed with a single-shot derringer, and James Garfield, who was killed with a revolver. (John Hinckley also used a revolver when he tried to kill Ronald Reagan.) Both are types of weapons that would remain legal in Washington no matter what Congress does.

I am glad to see that this bill has such a good chance of passing, and I wonder if the pro-gun votes of the Blue Dog Democrats have the old Democratic guard second guessing the success of the 2006 revolution they had in Congress. When Nancy Pelosi is offering a compromise bill that still relaxes some measures of DC gun control you know the times, they are a-changin'.