D.C. Goes the Maryland Route on Concealed Carry

VSSA Life Member and Second Amendment attorney Steve Halbrook predicted it and the Washington Times reports today that DC has gone the Maryland road in the draft of their ordinance allowing its residents to carry:

Mr. Nathan said the city modeled its “may issue” approach to permits, which is virtually certain to face a lawsuit, on states such as New York and Maryland, where such statutes have withstood challenges in federal courts. But a similar requirement in California stating that a person seeking the permit prove they were confronted with a “clear and present danger” was struck in February. That ruling is on hold pending appeals.

DC residents may have to wait to see if Peruta vs. San Diego makes it to the Supreme Court to get a real chance at carrying outside their home.

Gun Ban Researcher Daniel Webster: Lott's Scholarship Has Been Completely Discredited

With the weekend decision in Parker vs. District of Columbia, a lot is being written about concealed carry.  The Washington Post had a blog post yesterday titled More Guns, Less Crime? Not Exactly.  In the post, Emily Badger writes:

That prediction — Washington will be safer without the gun ban — stems from what's known as the "more guns, less crime" hypothesis. It argues that violent crime declines in places where more legal gun owners carry the weapons in public, both because those people are capable of self-defense, and because would-be criminals know they're out there. "More guns, less crime" has been an incredibly potent idea in local policy debates over gun laws. But is there evidence that it's true?  

The District, which is appealing the decision, isn't buying it.

The theory has largely been fueled by a deeply contested 1997 paper by economists John Lott and David Mustard, who concluded that "concealed handguns are the most cost-effective method of reducing crime thus far analyzed by economists." If states without concealed-carry laws had them back in 1992, Lott and Mustard calculated, that year they could have avoided hundreds of murders, thousands of rapes and tens of thousands of assaults.

In the next paragraph you get a sense of where that term "deeply contested" may have originated.  Badger went to Johns Hopkins University gun ban researcher Daniel Webster.  Webster was part of the Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy that held a "summit" at UVA at the end of last year.  Webster is currently involved in a project of the Police Executive Research Forum funded by the U.S. Department of Justice where he is studying a City of Sacramento ordinance requiring purchasers of ammunition in the city to sign a log and leave a fingerprint at the time of purchase and what impact it may have had on reducing crime.

Webster told Badger:

"John Lott’s research was in my opinion very instrumental over decades in having more states pass laws to make it easier to get permits to carry concealed loaded guns, and to lessen the barriers for those permit holders to take guns in ever more places, whether it's bars, or places of worship, or schools," says Daniel Webster, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. "It’s all based upon Lott’s scholarship that has been completely discredited."

In fact, the very study that Webster sited to Badger as proof that Lott's research on concealed carry is flawed was itself challenged in the research paper, Trust But Verify: Lessons for the Empirical Evaluation of Law and Policy.  The Abstract to that paper notes:

In a recent article, Aneja, Donohue and Zhang claim that they are unable to replicate the regressions published by the National Research Council in Chapter 6 of Firearms and Violence. They conclude that the NRC regressions must have been based on bad data supplied by John Lott. The implication is that earlier studies that found that right-to-carry laws reduced crime were flawed because of bad data. However, we can replicate the NRC results with Lott’s original data and with the data set used by the NRC. The earlier studies are not flawed by bad data.

But even more important. Webster's quote in the blog post that "My opinion is that I think there’s greater evidence that they probably have had some harmful impact" just doesn't hold up when you look at the numbers.  For instance, between 2006 and 2012, the number of firearms sold in Virginia increased 101% while crime committed with a firearm decreased 28%. Firearm related crime has dropped in Virginia for four consecutive years.  A VCU criminal justice researcher put it this way:

“This appears to be additional evidence that more guns don’t necessarily lead to more crime,” said Thomas R. Baker, an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs who specializes in research methods and criminology theory.

Those who question Lott's research usually are on the side of the argument that wants to place more restrictions on law abiding gun owners. So, why doesn't the media openly question the bias that a proponent of gun control may have in their research?

D.C. Sends Muddled Response to Gun Ruling

Having to scramble to respond to a Saturday ruling could cause muddled messages but one would think that after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Peruta earlier this year that the District of Columbia would have had a contingency plan in place in the event the ruling went against them.  But alas, that was not the case, and Chief of Police Cathy Lanier had to clarify her hastily prepared guidance she gave her officers over the weekend.  From Roll Call:

D.C. police have been ordered not to arrest people for carrying pistols and deadly weapons in public. Washingtonians can still face criminal charges for carrying unregistered firearms and ammunition, but the millions of people who visit the nation’s capital are exempt from those provisions under an order from Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier. The chief’s guidance effectively put the District’s firearm regulations, at least for non-residents, on a par with the most permissive gun jurisdictions in the country. D.C. police got additional guidance from Lanier on Monday afternoon. She clarified that the ruling applies only to handguns, not long guns or shotguns that are still illegal, and that committing crimes with handguns remains illegal.

For non-residents, legal possession of a handgun in D.C. is based on the laws of their home jurisdiction, meaning D.C. police will be responsible for knowing and enforcing licensing and permitting restrictions from around the country. Lanier noted that additional information on gun laws in other states will be forthcoming and said that in the meantime, officers can call a 24-hour information line.

Lanier’s orders came in response to Judge Frederick Scullin Jr.’s July 26 ruling in Palmer v. District of Columbia that D.C.’s complete ban on the carrying of handguns in public is unconstitutional. In the 19-page decision, Scullin wrote that he was stopping enforcement of the law “unless and until” the city adopted a constitutionally valid licensing mechanism.

In her follow-up guidance to officers, Lanier nodded to the confusion. “Unfortunately, this ruling has left many unanswered legal questions that are currently being reviewed by the [Office of the Attorney General],” she stated.

This guidance could be short lived as the D.C. Attorney General has filed for a stay of the ruling, sighting the Madigan case from Illinois where the 7th Circuit stayed the ruling for 180 days.  This gave Illinois time to come up with a plan to issue permits.  It is unclear if D.C. wants the stay to appeal the case or to comply with it.

DC Carry Ruling Could Positively Impact Hill Staffer and Lobbyist Caught With Gun At Capitol

Roll Call reports that Saturday's ruling by Judge Frederick Scullin Jr. in Palmer v. District of Columbia could affect currently charges against a Hill staffer and lobbyist recent caught carrying a firearm at the U.S. Capitol. Neither were charged by Capitol Police but were turned over to Metropolitan PD to be charge for violating DC gun laws:

Charges against two men whom Capitol Police allegedly stopped from bringing 9 mm handguns to Capitol Hill could change, as attorneys scramble to interpret the effect of a federal judge overturning the District’s handgun ban. 

On July 26, Judge Frederick Scullin Jr. ruled in Palmer v. District of Columbia that D.C.’s complete ban on the carrying of handguns in public is unconstitutional. In the 19-page decision, Scullin wrote that he was stopping enforcement of the law “unless and until” the city adopted a constitutionally valid licensing mechanism. 

D.C. police were subsequently instructed not to enforce the law against carrying pistols in public. In two separate incidents that are raising questions about campus security, Hill staffer Ryan Shucard and pork executive Ronald William Prestage were charged with violating that law when police uncovered handguns and magazines during administrative searches at the Cannon House Office building.  

The order not to enforce the law came from Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier on Sunday and is being implemented “until further notice,” according to her notice.

Likely stopped, at least for now, by the ruling from proceeding on charges related to violating DC city ordinances, federal prosecutors are considering charging both with violating the prohibition on possessing a firearm at the Capitol building or grounds.

Another Non-Resident Ensnared by D.C. Gun Laws

Roll Call reports that this time it is an agricultural lobbyist from South Carolina:

Capitol Police confiscated a 9mm Ruger handgun from the bag of Camden, S.C., resident Ronald William Prestage shortly after 9 a.m. on Wednesday morning at the Cannon House Office Building. Prestage, 59, was arrested and charged with carrying a pistol without a license, a District of Columbia offense that carries up to five years in prison.

Are there really this many people that don't know about D.C.s gun laws and their propensity for make examples of anyone caught with a firearm inside the city?

Congressional Staffer Gun Case Highlights Problems with Patchwork Gun Laws

Roll Call has this story on the Ryan Shucard case.  Shucard is the press secretary to two term PA Republican Congressman Tom Marino who was arrested after allegedly carrying a firearm and ammunition into the Cannon House Office Building.  Shucard lives in Alexandra, VA where it is legal to own a firearm.  Roll Call notes that the Capitol grounds are not governed by DC Law.

...Jason Kalafat, a partner at Price Benowitz LLP who has been hired to represent Shucard in D.C. court, had no comment on his client’s status as a gun owner in Virginia. He said there is no allegation that Shucard had the gun unlawfully, and pointed out that he is not being prosecuted for the federal offense of carrying on Capitol grounds, which carries up to five years in prison.

Kalafat said the difference between gun regulations in D.C. and Virginia creates a “big problem.” 

Because the Capitol grounds are federal property, they are not subject to the District’s strict gun laws.

The same thing could happen in Virginia were it not for pre-emption, which prevents localities from passing their own gun laws.  Say for instance, if Virginia did not have pre-emption, a gun owner traveling from one state to the next would have to know all the gun laws for every locality between the starting point and the final destination to make sure they did not get ensnared by them.

Shucard's case reminds me of the cases where gun owners have mistakenly attempted to take firearms through airport security.  It's obvious that they intended no harm.  Unfortunately in the case of Shucard, DC seems intent on making an example of him.

DC Business Man Faces Two Years in Jail for Having Ammo in Home

The Washington Times reports:

Mark Witaschek, a successful financial adviser with no criminal record, is facing two years in prison for possession of unregistered ammunition after D.C. police raided his house looking for guns. Mr. Witaschek has never had a firearm in the city, but he is being prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The trial starts on Nov. 4.

The police banged on the front door of Mr. Witaschek’s Georgetown home at 8:20 p.m. on July 7, 2012, to execute a search warrant for “firearms and ammunition … gun cleaning equipment, holsters, bullet holders and ammunition receipts.”

Sebastian over on Shall Not be Questioned accurately says at the end of the day, "this is what gun control looks like."

Emily Miller discussed it with Cam Edwards on NRANews.com yesterday.

Amendment Protecting Active Duty Military From DC Gun Laws

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence sent this email today regarding Representative Phil Gingrey's (R-GA) amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of FY 2012 (H.R. 4310) that would protect our nation's active duty military personnel from the District of Columbia's draconian gun ban laws.

Eleanor Holmes-Norton, DC's elected non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives ( as a non-voting member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Norton may serve on committees, as well as speak on the House floor; however, she is not permitted to vote on the final passage of any legislation), is quoted in the email decrying that pro-rights congressmen who espouse federalism seem to only do so until it includes the borders of DC.

According to D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, "Like the upcoming D.C. abortion ban hearing, the Gingrey Amendment reminds us that many Republican who claim to support federalism leave their principles at the District's borders ... Republicans have spent a week bullying D.C. instead of focusing on jobs."

Just a reminder Ms. Norton, federalism describes the relationship between the states and the federal government.  As much as you may wish otherwise, the District of Columbia is a not a state, and Congress has oversight power over the District. If DC was not so intent on making it almost impossible for residents to own firearms after their ban was ruled unconstitutional, maybe this amendment would not be necessary.  But the story below probably has more to do with Rep. Gingreay's amendment than anything else. And these laws are not even understood by the Metro Police.



Representative Gingrey's amendment is scheduled to be voted on today.  Urge your congressman to support the amendment.