Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Fenty of Lies From The Mayor   [David Freddoso]

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and Attorney General Linda Singer pen an op-ed in today's Washington Post arguing that the Second Amendment does not protect Americans' right to keep and bear arms. They also discuss their appeal of a D.C. Circuit Court ruling that struck down the district's draconian and unreasonable gun ban. Washingtonians are forbidden even from having handguns in their own homes.

The Fenty and Singer piece contains this howler:

The handgun ban has saved countless lives, but this fundamental part of the District's public safety laws will be no more if the Supreme Court does not review and overturn this year's decision by the D.C. Circuit.

Countless lives? D.C. is consistently at the top of the U.S. murder rate rankings. Was the gun ban saving "countless lives" in 1991, when the rate peaked at 80 murders per 100,000 people? Would the number have otherwise been even higher? Is it still saving "countless lives" when our murder rate for 2005, at its 20-year low, was still five times that of New York City?

If I'm not mistaken, Fenty and Singer appear to be suggesting that their city is so totally lawless that only a total deprivation of Constitutional rights can make it moderately liveable. I wonder how they feel about wiretapping?

More fatuity:

It is plainly relevant that the District allows residents to possess other perfectly effective firearms...

This is simply a lie, and unbecoming of public officials who have sworn oaths. The District gun ban forbids possession of any handgun not registered prior to 1977. It also forbids possession of other guns (shotguns, rifles) unless they are both registered and stored in a manner makes them immediately inoperable — I've always been told that this means the gun must be "disassembled," but the language of the law seems to allow "unloaded" and/or locked with a trigger lock as well.

The guns themselves may be "perfectly effective," but not so much when you hear a burglar snooping around your kitchen at night — as you often will, by the way, if you live in the District of Columbia.

09/04 03:47 PMShare