A Huge Victory for Second Amendment Supporters!

By Greg Campbell 

The people of our nation’s capital who remain behind the Iron Curtain of draconian gun laws have reason to rejoice as the House of Representatives passed, on Wednesday, an amendment that would prohibit the District of Columbia from spending funds to enforce local gun laws.

The House passed the amendment to the House appropriations bill which was proposed by Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie who claimed that it was important to pass pro-gun legislation in the Republican-controlled House. Rep. Massie claimed, 

“The genesis was the opportunity — it was a limitation amendment on the appropriations bill. This amendment process gives rank and file members the opportunity to introduce legislation if they can’t get it to the floor through committee, so this was an opportunity for me to bring up the gun issue.”

 

“This is one of the foremost planks in my platform — the right to keep and bear arms — and I’ve been in Congress for almost two years now and haven’t even had a chance to vote on a piece of gun legislation. I wanted to provide an opportunity for all the freshmen in Congress who have been as frustrated as I have that, even though we have a Republican Congress, haven’t had any gun legislation on the floor.” 

With gun control efforts on the back burner and D.C.’s incredibly-strict gun laws being unlikely to be seen as in keeping with Constitutional protections of firearm ownership in the future by the courts, the amendment easily passed the House, 241-181, with 20 Democrats voting Yea.

 

However, the appropriations bill is likely to face an uphill battle in the Democrat-controlled Senate as most Republican-led efforts have been thwarted by an obstructionist and radicalized Democrat stronghold in the Senate.

 

Massie spoke of the failure of gun control laws in D.C. on the House floor, saying,  

There is only one year after D.C.’s handgun ban went into effect in 1977 where its murder rate was as low as it was prior to the ban. D.C.’s murder rate rose dramatically relative to other cities, with its murder rate ranking either number 1 or 2 among the 50 most populous U.S. cities for half the time that the ban was in effect and in the top for two-thirds of the time.”

 

“However, as soon as the ban and, more importantly, the gunlock regulations were struck down in 2008 the murder rate fell, dropping by 50 percent over the next four years. Indeed, every place in the world that has banned guns has seen an increase in murder rates,” Massie continued.  

The Second Amendment is remarkably clear in its assertion of the right to keep and bear arms. It further clarifies that the right “shall not be infringed.” This right has been upheld as an individual right by the Supreme Court and further, the Second Amendment applies to states.

 

Still, gun ownership, even after Supreme court intervention, remains incredibly difficult, costly and invasive. The District maintains bans on certain types of firearms and prohibits the carrying of any firearm, concealed or out in the open. Travelers with firearms passing through D.C. remain endangered by the possibility of severe punishment if caught and transporting any loaded firearm in a vehicle is illegal.  

“Democrats often complain that requiring people to provide a photo ID to vote disproportionally disenfranchises minorities from their right to vote, yet many of them are comfortable disenfranchising minorities from the right to keep and bear arms because the District of Columbia has gun laws that require invasive fingerprinting, photographing and registering — which if what they say is true about voting is double true for D.C.’s gun laws,” Massie explained in an interview.  

Continued draconian gun laws in our nation’s capital remains a blight on our history as a free nation and Massie’s amendment, while still facing an uphill battle in the Senate, is a great leap towards restoring a freedom to the people of Washington, D.C., that was guaranteed over 200 years ago.