February 11, 2008
Another Way To Look At The D.C. Handguns Case
In March, lawyers for the District of Columbia will go before the Supreme Court to argue that the Second Amendment does not trump a municipality's interest in regulating the flow of deadly weapons. It will be the high court's first crack at the contentious "right to bear arms" amendment in more than seven decades.
As is often the case when big cities grapple with an epidemic of gun violence, the winds of sympathy are blowing in the District's favor. Mayor Adrian Fenty's administration is taking a visible lead in this case, seeking to defend the strictest handgun law in the country: a ban on most private gun ownership and requirements on how guns are stored in private homes.
The justices will be asked to interpret a confusing clause in the Second Amendment, which would thereby clarify whether the right to bear arms is collective -- the prevailing interpretation in American jurisprudence -- or individual. But in an amicus brief, a guns rights group is asking the court to take a very narrow look at D.C. v. Heller. At issue: the District's failure to police itself.
The amicus brief [PDF], filed by the Buckeye Firearms Foundation, which describes itself as "a coalition of five private security trade organizations," enumerates the ways in which the Metropolitan Police Department and D.C. government have failed to protect its citizens. (Hat tip: Volokh Conspiracy.)
"The District is consistently a national leader in various crime categories while simultaneously demonstrating inability to adapt or change under the crippling bureaucracy endemic to the District. Compounding this deadly combination of high crime and inflexibility are constant examples of corruption, incompetence and outright misfeasance in the operation of the department," the brief argues.
Few who live in the District would argue with the characterization of MPD as unable to get a grip on worsening violence here. In the summer of 2006, then-Police Chief Charles Ramsey declared a crime emergency after 14 people were killed in the first 11 days of July. Along with the usual victims -- those living in the poorest, least policed parts of the District -- the rash of violence also claimed a candidate for mayor.
Ramsey's since moved on to Philadelphia, another major city struggling with out-of-control gun violence. He left D.C. after Fenty, a longtime critic, took the helm as mayor. Ramsey oversaw a significant reduction in violence here, though D.C. remains one of the nation's most dangerous cities.
"Within the context of a police department failing in the most basic duty owed to the citizens, to protect and serve, and courts declining to hold police departments accountable for even the most egregious of these failures, the Second Amendment must be interpreted as an individual right to keep and bear firearms for defense of self and others," the brief continues.
This argument could allow the Supremes to decide D.C. v. Heller using factors other than a Second Amendment interpretation. For example, it's clear that the gun ban has done little to reduce gun violence in the District. That doesn't make it unconstitutional, but it's not a great argument for upholding the ban, either.
The amicus should also serve as a wake-up call to Fenty's administration. It has a lot riding on this case, which will be one of the highest profile of the court's term. But citizens may already suspect, as the Buckeye Firearms Foundation does, that the regulation of firearms is just one of the District's many problems when it comes to reducing violence.
D.C.'s current police chief, Cathy Lanier, hopes that the implementation of a wider network of cameras will help solve and prevent more crimes in the District, the Washington Post reports today. The U.S. Conference of Mayors and a slew of former DOJ officials, including former Attorney General Janet Reno, have filed briefs in support of the District. Read them here [PDF] and here [PDF].
Posted at 12:30 PM
Posted to:
Constitution, Crime, Supreme Court
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