Third Way Dispatch

Before they start popping the champagne corks over on Waples Mill Road, Wayne LaPierre and his fellow couch potatoes at the NRA better carefully read the DC Circuit’s decision striking down the District of Columbia’s gun ban. You see, the NRA has been fighting hammer and tongs to overturn the DC ban on handguns. As a resident of the 4th Ward of DC – yes, right near the infamous Walter Reed outpatient clinic, which actually looks worse in person than on TV – let me express my gratitude for the NRA’s sincere concerns about my freedoms.

I’ve always thought the DC gun ban was probably unconstitutional, and when I would debate the NRA in the past, I’d always challenge them to take it to court. Well, someone finally did, and now the NRA has got to live with it. You see, the DC Circuit did overturn the ban on 2nd Amendment grounds, but Republican-appointed majority (a Reaganaut, and a GWB’er) implied that nearly every other gun law in the nation is constitutional: “That is not to suggest that the government is absolutely barred from regulating the use and ownership of pistols,” says the opinion. “Reasonable restrictions also might be thought consistent with a ‘well regulated Militia.’ The registration of firearms gives the government information as to how many people would be armed for militia service if called up. Reasonable firearm proficiency testing would both promote public safety and produce better candidates for military service.”

(Check out our memo on how progresssives should respond to the decision.)

Folks, these wild-eyed, gun-grabbing, activist judges are talking about licensing and registration! And did I mention that they were appointed by Reagan and W?

The NRA won the battle over the DC gun ban. But let’s face it, they never really gave a hoot about DC anyway. And besides, before you can say “taxation without representation,” the City Council will pass a law that complies with the decision.

But the NRA definitely lost the war. The Court found that the Second Amendment allows for reasonable restrictions – restrictions far beyond anything the NRA could stomach. It turns out that by shooting off their mouths, they shot themselves in the foot.