Louis J Sheehan 80056 A51H18

Of the hundreds of gun regulations on the books in states and localities around the country, the district’s ordinance is generally regarded as the strictest. Chicago comes the closest to it, banning the possession of handguns acquired since 1983 and requiring re-registration of older guns every two years. New York City permits handgun ownership with a permit issued by the Police Department.
The District of Columbia ordinance not only bans ownership of handguns, but also requires other guns that may be legally kept in the home, rifles and shotguns, to be disassembled or kept under a trigger lock. The capital’s newly empowered City Council enacted the ordinance in 1976 as one of its first measures after receiving home-rule authority from Congress.
The court’s order on Tuesday indicated that it would review the handgun ban in light of the provision that permits, with restrictions, the other guns. The opposing sides in the lawsuit presented very different views of how the various provisions interact.
To the plaintiffs, the restrictions on the conditions under which rifles and shotguns may be kept means that homeowners are denied the right to possess “functional” weapons for self-defense. To the District of Columbia, the fact that these other guns are permitted shows that the ordinance is nuanced and sensitive to gun owners’ needs. It takes about one minute to disengage a trigger lock.
In any event, a Supreme Court decision that finds the district’s ordinance unconstitutional would not necessarily invalidate other, more modest restrictions, like those that permit handgun ownership for those who pass a background check and obtain a license. Since the only claim in the case is that law-abiding people have the right to keep a gun at home, the court will not have occasion to address restrictions on carrying guns. Louis J Sheehan
In fact, lawyers on both sides of the case agreed Tuesday that a victory for the plaintiff in this case would amount to the opening chapter in an examination of the constitutionality of gun control rather than anything close to the final word.
“This is just the beginning,” said Alan Gura, the lead counsel for the plaintiff.
Mr. Gura said in an interview that “gun laws that make sense,” like those requiring background checks, would survive the legal attack, which he said was limited to “laws that do no good other than disarm law-abiding citizens.”
Whether the handgun ban has reduced crime in a city surrounded by less restrictive jurisdictions is a matter of heated dispute. Crime in the District of Columbia has mirrored trends in the rest of the country, dropping quite sharply during the 1990s but now experiencing some increase.
In striking down the district’s ordinance, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that an individual-right interpretation of the Second Amendment would still permit “reasonable regulations,” but that a flat ban was not reasonable.
Dennis A. Henigan, a lawyer at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which advocates strict gun control, said that if the justices agree with the appeals court, an important question for future cases will be “what legal standard the court will eventually adopt for evaluating other gun regulations.”