Defense Bill
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
When I moved to Washington, D.C., as a student in the early 1980s, I was appalled to learn that the city had passed an almost complete ban on the ownership of firearms, leaving me with no real means to defend my home or property. On Wednesday, the House will vote on a bill to restore to the residents of the District of Columbia the right to defend themselves.
The citywide gun ban is one of the country’s strictest, requiring even the few rifles and shotguns that are allowed be disassembled, unloaded, and locked up. But because of the district’s status as a federal enclave, the Constitution gives Congress the ultimate authority over what laws govern it. Congress usually doesn’t countermand laws passed by the district’s elected government, but the gun ban not only blatantly defies the Second Amendment but has also proved to be a manifest failure.
Preventing law-abiding people from owning guns in their homes – there is no talk of allowing residents the right to carry concealed handguns – has done nothing to reduce crime, which has skyrocketed in part due to police mismanagement and corruption. In the five years after the ban took effect in 1976, the murder rate rose to 35 for every 100,000 people from 27. In fact, in the three decades since the ban took effect, the annual murder rate has only once fallen below what it was in 1976. In 2002, the murder rate hit 46 for every 100,000 people. Robbery rates have also risen dramatically.
Washington residents tell me that the police response times to reports of crime are atrocious, and inner-city residents and the elderly are more vulnerable because the bad guys know they will likely be unarmed. Little wonder that last year six local citizens filed a civil suit in federal court seeking to overturn the gun ban.
Shelly Parker has been threatened by drug dealers as a result of her efforts to clean up her neighborhood. She would like to own a gun for self-protection. Another plaintiff is a policeman who is allowed to carry a gun in his duties as a guard at a court building. But the city turned him down when he asked permission to keep a gun in his home. Another plaintiff is a gay man who was assaulted in another city because of his sexual orientation, but was able to scare off his attacker with a handgun.
District officials did reluctantly legalize pepper spray a decade ago, but they have turned a deaf ear to those who point out that district residents in high-crime areas are helpless until the police are able to respond to a call. That’s why Rep. Mark Souder, an Indiana Republican, has introduced a bill that would restore the right of law-abiding, mentally competent citizens to own rifles, shotguns, and handguns in the district.
Mr. Souder has assembled a diverse group of co-sponsors, including 41 House Democrats. Among supporters of ending the gun ban are Rep. Ciro Rodriguez of Texas, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Rep. Sanford Bishop of Georgia, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Another supporter is Carol Moseley Braun, the famously liberal ex-senator from Illinois, who told district residents during her presidential campaign that she supported ending the gun ban because she believes the Constitution guarantees the right to own guns.
Once Mr. Souder’s bill has passed the House it will be sent to the Senate; between 48 and 51 senators either favor it or are leaning in favor of it. No doubt, this is one bill liberal senators will filibuster, so it won’t become law this year.
The debate over the district’s draconian gun ban should provide valuable lessons for other cities that have foolishly tried to fight crime by disarming their citizens. Chicago’s gun ban, passed in 1982, has done nothing to curb that city’s murder rate even though its police force is well-trained and well equipped and has a good relationship with neighborhood leaders. Chicago’s murder rate was 5.5 times as high as that of five surrounding counties in 1982, when gun control passed. During the next five years the murder rate soared to 12 times as great as in the neighboring counties.
Gun control is bad for public safety, in large part because criminals ignore gun bans that honest people feel compelled to follow. Robert Levy, a scholar at the Cato Institute in Washington, says lifting the Washington gun ban is a moral issue. “Right now, if someone breaks into a poor person’s home here, their only choice is to call 9-1-1 and pray the police arrive in time,” he says. “That’s not good enough, and let’s hope members of Congress grant the right to bear arms to people who can’t afford to live in the safe neighborhoods they go home to at night.”
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