by Dave Workman | Senior Editor
The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) scored another legal victory recently when the District of Columbia decided to drop its appeal of a federal judge’s ruling in a case that declared the city’s ban on carrying firearms outside of the home is unconstitutional, according to the Washington Post.
The case, known as Palmer v. District of Columbia, was decided in July 2014 and in November, U.S. District Court Judge Frederick J. Scullin, Jr., denied a motion by the District to reconsider his ruling. At the time, Judge Scullin wrote, “In light of Heller, McDonald and their progeny, 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.”
“While we’re happy to see the city drop their appeal of our earlier victory,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb in a prepared statement, “we were eager to face them in court, as there was no possible way they could have successfully argued in favor of continuing an outright ban on carry in the District.”
Gottlieb noted that the District’s current carry law is already being challenged. Under the present scheme, permit applicants must provide a good reason for carrying a firearm in public, and the police chief gets to decide whether that reason is valid. So far, only a handful of applicants have been approved, Gottlieb said, and that is what he called “a fundamental flaw in such a discretionary permitting scheme.”
“No public official should enjoy that kind of sway over a citizen’s right to bear arms,” Gottlieb stated. “It creates a manifestly unfair system that is wide open to abuse and favoritism, as we’ve seen in New York, California and elsewhere that insiders and elitists can get permits, but average citizens are routinely given second-class consideration, or no consideration at all.”
In SAF’s newer challenge, the group is joined by three private citizens, Brian Wrenn (for whom the case is named) and Joshua Akery, both of Washington, DC, and Tyler Whidby, a Florida resident who also maintains a residence in Virginia. The city and Police Chief Cathy Lanier are named as defendants.
In a statement announcing the city’s decision, DC Attorney General Karl A. Racine explained, “We need to focus our energies not on litigating old laws, but defending new ones that our leaders enacted in good faith to comply with court rulings while still protecting public safety. We are vigorously defending it in the district court, and we are confident that it will be upheld.”
But that may not be the case if Congress moves on legislation introduced by US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH). They filed federal legislation to reform the District’s gun laws in mid-March. The “Second Amendment Enforcement Act of 2015” would allow District residents to buy firearms in Virginia or Maryland, create a “shall issue” permitting system and repeal the District’s registration system, among other things, according to published reports.
Gottlieb told TGM that the city’s decision hardly signals the end of SAF’s fight against restrictive gun law provisions. His organization has challenged discretionary carry laws in New York, New Jersey and Maryland – with attempts for Supreme Court review all having been so far rejected – but there will likely be more challenges.
“Our intent is to continue our battle for the right to bear arms on behalf of all the citizens, not just a privileged few,” Gottlieb concluded.
