It’s a trap!
I mentioned how the mayor of DC may have put down the crack pipe and said the DC should drop its gun ban. In comments there, folks have opined that this is a trap and serves to either:
1) get everyone who unlawfully has a gun to register them so that the police can come get them later.
or
2) trying to invalidate Parker v. DC as being moot.
Could be.
February 8th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Theory #1 is debatable; the gunnies have long said every registration scheme would lead to confiscation, but in this country they hardly ever do. DC’s existing law hasn’t been used for mass confiscations of lawfully owned handguns, so what makes anyone think that a new amnesty would be different, any more than IRCA or Bush’s proposed non-amnesty amnesty for illegal aliens is really a trap to find them all and deport t them back to Me-hee-co?
Theory #2 is more interesting. It strikes me more as a standing issue than one of mootness, as its effect would be to give the immediate plaintiffs a means to make the issue go away as to them personally, without making it go away generally. The court could dismiss on standing grounds, but if it did, it would virtually guarantee that a group of new plaintiffs who missed this 90-day window would soon surface bringing an identical suit – possibly to have DC repeat its 90-day stunt to make their case go away, and so on.
All this makes Parker + Barry’s 90 day window a prime candidate for the “capable of repetition, yet evading review” exception to the general rule on standing. It’s also the only reason abortion cases ever make it to the Supreme Court. [By the time the Supremes got around to ruling in Roe v. Wade, the intended target of that case, Melissa McCorvey, was two.]
February 8th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
We’d trust that a lot better if the same people who push registration schemes would admit that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right. But as long as they are claiming that the government may confiscate guns, we’re going to resist giving them a list of where to confiscate them. And I believe there have been partial confiscations in some states of the USA, of evil-looking semi-auto rifles (mis-called “assault weapons”), for instance.
February 8th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
No, it wouldnt be standing. They are different justicability doctrines.
Standing goes to whether or not a governmental action affects the plaintiffs- the idea is that there are good plaintiffs out there, but these arent the right ones. Standing is usually the best response to test cases, because the government can almost always say “but we havent prosecuted you, your lawsuit is pure speculation.” However, that isnt available here because the DC government has stated repeatedly that they have zero tolerance for violators of the handgun law and that they will prosecute ANYONE who does so, including the plaintiffs in this case (and presumably any other). Very sloppy on their part to have repeatedly made such an admission in public and on the record.
Mootness goes to whether the court’s ruling will influence a real world outcome or whether it is two non-adverse parties bringing a question before the court just because. For example, if a man was charged with a crime but the criminal statute was repealed and the charges dropped against him, his challenge would be moot because the case turns out the same no matter how they decide. However, moot cases can still be brought if the court feels that the issues in the case are likely to continue to repeat and to continue to avoid review on mootness ground. For example, in abortion cases, the appellate process takes several times longer than a pregnancy, so every abortion case will be moot by the time it reaches the supreme court. However, the court will turn a blind eye if it is a legal issue likely to affect other plaintiffs and continue to be mooted before arriving at the court.
In Parker v DC, legalizing handguns will partially moot the case (there is still the “no assembly of long guns” statute) and depending on what DC does from that point on, future plaintiffs might have difficulty getting standing. Especially if the DC goes through a bunch of gyrations and ends up with a NYC or Chicago style system but only gives permits to the mayor and city council. If they then kept their mouths shut about prosecuting people, they could chill people’s conduct, but not enough to give anyone standing except in the criminal context (appealing convictions and so on).
February 8th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
The best scenario would be them not acting in time and us getting a very favorable ruling out of the DC Circuit. Even if they repeal after that point, we still have the precedent on the books in DC to challenge any future law they come up with.
Of course the more likely outcome is that no one does anything and the decision just happens and is appealed.
February 8th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
I know. That was my point. Barry’s 90-day registration/legalization scheme would give these individual plaintiffs a legal way to do exactly what they are suing for the right to do, thereby making good plaintiffs into crummy ones. Only after that period elapses, and others are locked out of getting their handguns will someone else be affected by the ordinance the way these guys are now.
February 8th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
“Theory #1 is debatable; the gunnies have long said every registration scheme would lead to confiscation, but in this country they hardly ever do. “-xrlq
Perhaps you should read up on some California statutes passed after the fact, resulting in confiscation of previously “approved” firearms.
I happen to own one, I don’t happen to live in California where I legally purchased it. Thank God for that, it means I don’t have to shoot he lying bastards when they come to get it, because I am not under their jurisdiction. But they would have, were I still there. I am glad I was just passing through.
Did you know we now require passports to re-enter the US from Canada and Mexico? They haven’t changed their laws, but we have. Could we add California to the list for starters. They are as foreign to America as venue on the planet.
February 8th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
SA, you’re wrong about CA, where I myself had the misfortune of living for more years of my life than I’d care to admit. Both AW bans were bad, but neither retroactively banned anything that had been lawfully registered under the other, or under any other law. The only cases where registration preceded confiscation was where the gun was prohibted all along, then registered to suckers who believed it to be legal, and turned out to be wrong. That would be the DC case if the DC police took it upon themselves to implement Barry’s proposal without legislative authority to do so – in that case, anyone who registers his still-illegal gun is a fool.
February 8th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
About theory #1. The difference is that in the original registration, all of those firearms were legal prior to registration. When the law went into effect (1977), the only firearms permitted to be registered were firearms that had been previously registered. No new registrations were allowed. In this current scenario, one would be registering a firearm that is currently illegal. Would you take that chance?
February 9th, 2007 at 4:03 am
It depends on how the law is written. If the law is written so as to legalize the previously illegal firearms, why not? If no law is passed, and the government opens registration contrary to law, then you get what happened in California. I suppose there is an option #3 if an ordinance is passed that allows registration going forward, but does not wipe away past violations as a result of registration. In that case, legally registering a gun today, without providing evidence that you first obtained it or brought it into the District during the amnesty period, could be used as evidence to show that you illegally possessed the gun yesterday.
February 11th, 2007 at 1:27 am
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