It looks like Mayor Fenty and the DC City Council are looking to avoid an embarrassing rebuke from the House of Representatives while maintaining some sort of control over their ability to legislate firearms. One of the council's chairmen, Phil Mendelson, said:
I think we're addressing the Supreme Court ruling and, coincidentally, addressing Congress's concern...
The severity of the District's previous bans and current onerous restrictions makes me think that they are less concerned with compliance and more concerned with 1) the lost face of being stripped of a piece of Home Rule and 2) losing another costly court battle. Regardless, the fact that the Mayor and the Council are considering removing more of these restrictions without going through the long and losing fight is another high water mark in this sea change of firearms politics (not to mix metaphors). Combine this with the fact that Nancy Pelosi was willing to play ball with the House Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats and put forth a compromise bill that loosens the District's gun laws and you are looking at quite a coup. So much so, that is looks like the people over at the Brady Campaign have run out of steam on the issue:
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said he was "a little concerned" about the District possibly eliminating safe-storage requirements for firearms, but he voiced no objection to other aspects of the council's legislation.
The proposed updates to the emergency legislation include allowing the registration of semi-automatic handguns (with a maximum 10 round magazine) and removing the safe storage and ballistic test requirements. More as this story develops...
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