House votes to ease DC gun restrictions
By JIM ABRAMS – 7 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The pro-gun majority in the House moved Wednesday to compel the nation's capital to broaden the rights of its residents to buy and own firearms, including semiautomatic weapons.

Critics, led by the District of Columbia's sole delegate to Congress, decried the action. They said the vote tramples on the district's right to govern itself and could endanger both residents and political dignitaries who often travel across the city.

But the National Rifle Association-backed bill passed easily, 266-152, with supporters saying they were determined to give D.C. residents the same Second Amendment right of self-defense that has been available to other Americans.

Many of those speaking for the bill in debate that extended well into the night Tuesday were conservative Democrats from rural districts who strongly support gun rights. Eighty-five Democrats voted for the bill.

"Number one, I'm a pro-gun Democrat," said Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark. "Number 2, if the government of the District of Columbia can take your guns away from you in our nation's capital, Prescott, Arkansas, and many other small towns across the country could be next."

The legislation is unlikely to be taken up in the Senate in the few remaining weeks of this session, but it served both to give lawmakers a pro-gun vote shortly before the election and to demonstrate the NRA's continuing political clout.

The bill, sponsored by Mississippi freshman Democrat Travis Childers, would echo action taken Tuesday by the D.C. Council by repealing the district's semiautomatic handgun ban and overturning a D.C. law requiring that firearms kept in the home be locked up and inoperable. It would allow D.C. residents to purchase guns from federally licensed dealers in Maryland and Virginia and repeal what critics claimed were burdensome registration requirements.

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty said in a statement that he finds it "unacceptable that this bill makes the district the only jurisdiction in the country exempt from a federal law banning residents from buying guns in other states."

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote last June, ruled that the 32-year-old district ban on handgun possession violated Second Amendment rights to bear arms. The D.C. Council responded the next month with a temporary measure allowing possession of unloaded weapons in homes but keeping the ban on semiautomatics.

On Tuesday the council went further, voting to let residents own most semiautomatic pistols and removing the requirement that weapons be stored unloaded and disassembled or secured with trigger locks.

That wasn't enough for the NRA and its congressional allies, which accused the council of trying to defy the Supreme Court ruling.

"This Congress has lost faith in the willingness of the District of Columbia to defend the Second Amendment," said Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind.

But nonvoting Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton said Congress was violating the district's home rule rights by imposing federal dictates, something it would do to no other American city.

"The House has the gall to ask for a vote to nullify the gun laws in my district, depriving my district of the right to protect itself and visitors like yourselves while denying me a vote on this floor on passage. Have you no shame?" she declared.

Norton unsuccessfully tried to move a bill that would have merely given the district 180 days to come up with new regulations complying with the Supreme Court ruling. The White House opposed that approach and supported the Childers measure, saying it would "immediately advance Second Amendment principles."

District of Columbia Council Chairman Vincent Gray said the House was rushing "to trample on the rights of D.C. taxpayers ... even as the district government has acted swiftly and responsibly to enact an emergency bill" to address the Supreme Court's ruling.

Associated Press writer Brian Westley contributed to this report.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gVjI9TcCa35RlrXky7c22Ixr7JhQD938MT9G0

It's important for readers to see the District of Columbia for what it is rightly or wrongly. It is not only of the fifty states nor is it a territory or protectorate before considering and while considering the issue of gun ownership.

Because of it's somewhat unique status the area has both suffered and enjoyed a unique status. Still, it was a DC case that recently helped define, through a SCOTUS decision, just what the constitutional right to bear arms means.

Silly me...

now liberals with comrade peloshky want semiautomatic weapons?

does the NRA know this?

where's Ted Nugent to sound the hypocrit alarm?


maybe the comrades want to take over DC with an armed coup or maybe they want McCain to vote for this and Bush to sign it so they can say Mc Cain is still voting with Bush.


this is getting interesting.

but still.....

nobums with bidets 2008

Wasn't the Coup, actually a facsist one, first proposed by Prescott Bush and others, when he tried to hire Smedley Butler to lead an army to over throw the Republic at the end of the great (soon to be called the little) depression?

Hmmm... seems to me he succeeded anyway, he just used stealth and the CIA.

skull and bones and masons?.

oh boy, my dad is going to be pissed when he finds out I am laughing at his buddies.LOL

you are a bad influence on me, war.

I've heard that before! LOL.

Unlike most "conspiracy theories" Ole Smedley had to testify in front of Congress about that mess.

Then right behind that Ole Prescott had his assets seized by J.Edgar Hoover and the FBI for violating the trading with the enemy (I know I mention this elsewhere), the entire Bush fortune was built with Nazi blood money, yet people are surprised that son and grandson have been chips off the old block?

Not me, I read.

spiro t. agnew didn't like hoover much either.

he once said of him. "it is better to have him inside the tent pi$$ing out, than outside pi$$ing in"


true story.

Good time to start paying attention. My guess is crime rate will actually go down over the years. At last a bill passed that doesn't take away rights and/or powers of people.

The truth is, in areas with conceal carry, the crime rates drop, because the bad guys can't ever tell who's packing or not.


It puts the law abiding on the same footing as the criminals, regardless of their colors or uniform.