A judge in Washington DC has ordered the city officials to permit people to carry handguns openly displayed, “ready to use” in public.
DC has instituted a complete ban on carrying handguns in public, sensible you might think, but the court found that the ban was unconstitutional.
“There is no longer any basis on which this court can conclude that the District of Columbia’s total ban on the public carrying of ready-to-use handguns outside the home is constitutional under any level of scrutiny,” said Judge Frederick J. Scullin Jr of the District of Columbia District Court.
“Therefore, the court finds that the District of Columbia’s complete ban on the carrying of handguns in public is unconstitutional”.
Now both residents and non-residents may carry handguns about the place.
This in the capital of a country which has seen four of its 44 presidents assassinated, all by gun shot. In all, there have been more than 20 attempts to kill sitting and former presidents and both Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Regan were shot in attempted assassinations.
Mere mortals without body guards may not fare as well as presidents.
This is not the first time DC’s ban on handguns has been challenged.
In 2008 the Supreme Court ruled that the ban violated the right to bear arms, as in the Second Amendment of the US Constitution, which reads thus:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
No one wants to connect “militia” and “arms”. Indeed, the Supreme Court has decided that the right belongs to individuals and not merely to militias.
