CrimePolitics

D.C. won’t appeal CCW court loss; NRA wants ‘bump stock’ review

The NRA has asked the BATF to review “bump stocks” to see if they comply with federal law. (Screen snip, YouTube, Central Texas Survival)

While Capitol Hill is in the midst of gun control hysteria, the District of Columbia city government has decided against appealing its summer loss of a concealed carry case to the U.S. Supreme Court in what appears to have been a purely political move to protect gun control laws in several states.

The report came as the National Rifle Association has called for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to “immediately review” whether so-called “bump stock” devices comply with federal law, according to the Chicago Sun-Times and Associated Press.

In a joint statement, NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre and chief lobbyist Chris Cox said, “The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semi-automatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles should be subject to additional regulations.

“In an increasingly dangerous world,” the statement continued, “the NRA remains focused on our mission: strengthening Americans’ Second Amendment freedom to defend themselves, their families and their communities.

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“To that end,” LaPierre and Cox said, “on behalf of our five million members across the country, we urge Congress to pass National Right-to-Carry reciprocity, which will allow law-abiding Americans to defend themselves and their families from acts of violence.”

According to the Washington Post, District officials decided against a challenge to the high court in a Second Amendment Foundation case called Wrenn v. District of Columbia. That case successfully challenged the city’s “good cause” requirement to obtain a concealed carry permit. The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District, considered by many to be second only to the Supreme Court in legal circles, struck down the requirement as unconstitutional.

At risk, according to published reports and SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, were similar needs-based laws in several states including California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, New York and New Jersey.

“We believe the city was under intense pressure to take the hit and not appeal the ruling by the U.S. District Court of Appeals,” Gottlieb said in a prepared statement. “If the District had lost the case before the high court, it would have dealt a fatal blow to similar requirements in (various states) and that prospect had anti-gun politicians in those states quaking in their shoes.”

The District also recalled the last time it appealed a gun case to the high court. That resulted in the 2008 Heller ruling that defined the Second Amendment as protecting an individual right to keep and bear arms. Specifically, the court said handgun bans are unconstitutional, and it recognized that handguns are protected by the Second Amendment.

“Let’s face it,” Gottlieb said, “anti-gunners are determined to cling to their dogma of public disarmament rather than admit that their resistance to common sense concealed carry reform amounts to nothing more than stubborn denial. These people simply do not want to enter the 21st Century. They refuse to accept the Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment protects and affirms an individual right to not only keep arms, but to bear them as the Founders understood.”

He predicted that the high court will eventually have to hear a concealed carry case because now there are conflicting rulings in the various circuits.

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