Heller update
From a reader: According to NBC4, Heller was denied registration.
Can anyone confirm?
Update: Confirmed – sorta:
In the first hours of the first day that it was legally possible to register handguns in the nation’s capital, only one person showed up to do so–and he was turned away because he didn’t bring his weapon with him.
Capitol Hill resident Dick A. Heller, whose lawsuit prompted the landmark Supreme Court ruling that scuttled the city’s strict firearms control laws, arrived at D.C. police headquarters at 6:30 a.m., a full 30 minutes before the new gun registration office was scheduled to open.
Heller, accompanied by his attorney, was met on the steps of the building by a cluster of camera crews and Lieutenant Jon Shelton, head of the firearms registration unit. In an animated discussion, police explained to Heller that he needed to show officials the guns he wanted to register — and allow them to be test-fired — as part of the registration process.
Heller’s attorney, Dane von Breichenruchardt, said Heller owns at least two handguns — a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol and a 9-shot, .22-caliber revolver — and has stored them for years with a friend in Maryland. Although officials said that gun owners in Heller’s situation can bring legally owned firearms from other jurisdictions into the District in order to register them, the attorney said he had told Heller not to do so without written assurance that it was permissible.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Heller has to bring it to police headquarters to register it, but if it’s not registered it’s not legal to even bring it into the District. Remember, the Brady Center only wants sensible, common-sense gun laws.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:41 am
I’ll see if I can get Alan Gura’s take on this. He’s scheduled to speak at the VCDL meeting tonight in Annandale.
July 17th, 2008 at 10:48 am
I wish he would show up with one of these and say “Here. Test fire it.”
July 17th, 2008 at 11:27 am
SCOTUS said that DC has to issue a permit to Heller, not “may issue”. The ruling didn’t leave any options for DC, they must issue the permit.
I’ll expect a lawsuit to be filled any minute now.
July 17th, 2008 at 11:43 am
I hope he tries to register the Semi-Automatic. 🙂
July 17th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Standard Mischief –
Although to you and me this looks like it allows “Shall Issue” permits, the District probably feels that living in DC is a disqualification to the exercise of Second Amendment rights. 😉
July 17th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Didn’t they say that you cannot carry a firearm outside of the home and this permit was for inside the home only?
If so wouldn’t bringing your gun to the police to be registered, be infact violating other laws, or does this new registration scheme overwrite the ban on carrying outside the home if you take it directly to the police? Can you get gas or go to the grocery store on that trip or must it be straight there and straight home?
July 17th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
The handgun must be left with the police for “ballistics testing” (will it fire, and hey, let’s keep the slug for ‘elimination’ purposes) for, possibly. weeks.
And yeah, they’d confiscate and probably destroy his semiauto. It is unclear from accounts in MSM whether there is a seperate law about semiauto pistols as such, but they do fit the definition of the banning DC “machine gun” law.
July 17th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
yeah and there’s the implied threat of being railroaded at at later date based on testimony from their Pet ballistics examiner. So, bring your gun, lose your gun, go home, when the news has died down, go on trial for a murder you know nothing about, but which Fenty’s henchman says your gun was involved in.
Do no think for one damn minute that they aren’t corrupt enough to do it.