Washington DC: Where Gun Control Misfired

What I saw as a prosecutor in Washington, D.C., makes me wary of strict firearms laws.
Excerpt:

As a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who enforced firearms and ammunition cases while a severe local gun ban was still in effect, I am skeptical of the benefits that many imagine will result from additional gun-control efforts. I dislike guns, but I believe that a nationwide firearms crackdown would place an undue burden on law enforcement and endanger civil liberties while potentially increasing crime.

The D.C. gun ban, enacted in 1976, prohibited anyone other than law-enforcement officers from carrying a firearm in the city. Residents were even barred from keeping guns in their homes for self-defense.

Some in Washington who owned firearms before the ban were allowed to keep them as long as the weapons were disassembled or trigger-locked at all times. According to the law, trigger locks could not be removed for self-defense even if the owner was being robbed at gunpoint.

The only way anyone could legally possess a firearm in the District without a trigger lock was to obtain written permission from the D.C. police. The granting of such permission was rare.

The gun ban had an unintended effect: It emboldened criminals because they knew that law-abiding District residents were unarmed and powerless to defend themselves. Violent crime increased after the law was enacted, with homicides rising to 369 in 1988, from 188 in 1976 when the ban started. By 1993, annual homicides had reached 454.

The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department also waged a war on firearms by creating a special Gun Recovery Unit in 1995. The campaign meant that officers were obliged to spend time searching otherwise law-abiding citizens. That same year, the department launched a crackdown called Operation Cease Fire to rid the District of illegal firearms. But after four months, officers had confiscated only 282 guns out of the many thousands in the city.

Civil liberties were endangered. Legislative changes empowered judges to hold gun suspects in pretrial detention without bond for up to 100 days, and efforts were made to enact curfews and seize automobiles found to contain firearms.

Comment: Image source

“Chocolate City” more like "Mocha Frappé"

Number of black D.C. residents plummets as majority status slips away

Excerpt:

According to census statistics released Thursday, barely 50 percent of the District’s population was African American in 2010 — a remarkable shift in a place once nicknamed “Chocolate City.”

The black population dropped by more than 39,000 over the decade, down to 301,000 of the city’s 601,700 residents. At the same time, the non-Hispanic white population skyrocketed by more than 50,000 to 209,000 residents, almost a third higher than a decade earlier.

The census statistics showed a steeper change for both blacks and whites than had been estimated. With the city ‘s black population dropping by about 1 percent a year, African Americans might already be below the 50 percent mark in the city.

In a city that prides itself on being a hub of black culture and politics, a majority of residents have been black since whites began moving to the suburbs en masse at the end of World War II. By 1970, seven out of 10 Washingtonians were black.

The loss of blacks comes at a time when the city is experiencing a rebound, reversing a 60-year-long slide in population and adding almost 20,000 new residents between 2000 and 2010.

The demographic change is the result of almost 15 years of gentrification that has transformed large swaths of Washington, especially downtown. As housing prices soared, white professionals priced out of neighborhoods such as Dupont Circle began migrating to predominantly black areas such as Petworth and Brookland.

Comment: Image source: Mocha Frappé

A productive day in the nation's capital

D.C. ‘held captive’ by storm, more snow looms - at least 430,000 workers get day off

Excerpt:

Federal agencies that employ 230,000 in Washington were closed ...

Comment: More being accomplished by DC being closed!

The US should pull out of Washington, DC

An interesting letter in the Australian Shooter Magazine this week, which I quote:

"If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the past 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000 soldiers.

The firearm death rate in Washington, DC is 80.6 per 100,000 for the same period.

That means you are about 25 per cent more likely to be shot and killed in the US capital, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the US , than you are in Iraq ..

Conclusion: The US should pull out of Washington, DC."

Comment: From Brother

Further commment .... note I labeled this humor

Someone took it too seriously here.

DC is is awash in your money

WSJ: Washington DC - Boom Town

Excerpts:

According to new data, the area's unemployment rate dropped to 5.6% in April from 5.9% in March. This is the second consecutive month of improvement for Washingtonians, and it's leagues from the national unemployment rate, which hit 9.4% in May.

With unemployment for all government workers about half the private sector's rate, the Beltway has been spared the tightening elsewhere. The federal government is the second largest job sector in the area, making up 11.6% of jobs, while state and local government workers add another 10.4%. According to a February survey by the Greater Washington Initiative, Washington area business executives were also "significantly more positive" about their own companies and the region's prospects than about the national economy. Translation: It's good to be close to Uncle Sam when stimulus funds start flying.

In a speech to GWI's conference last week, former venture capitalist and now Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia saw nothing but green for most of Washington's public-private economy. "The federal government's level of activity in the economy is unprecedented," he said, adding that new stimulus projects and investments in green technology in particular look like a jackpot for the region. As Mr. Warner put it to the Washington Business Journal, "It helps to be where the money is." Or better yet, where everyone else's money gets sent.

Comment: No surprise here.

D.C. defies Heller ruling

Excuse Me While I Get My Gun: Washington, D.C., defies the Supreme Court's Second Amendment ruling


Excerpt:

Under D.C. law, "machine guns" include not only guns that fire continuously but also guns that fire once per trigger pull if they can fire more than 12 rounds without reloading or "can be readily converted" to do so. According to the District's interpretation, even a pistol that fires 12 or fewer rounds counts as a "machine gun" if it could accept a bigger magazine.

That's why Dick Heller, the man who successfully challenged D.C.'s handgun ban, was not allowed to register his seven-shot .45-caliber pistol, which in the District's view might as well be an Uzi. Instead he applied to register a .22-caliber revolver.

Speaking of registration, the District has established a burdensome 12-step process that involves multiple trips to gun dealers and government offices, fingerprinting, a written exam, and ballistic testing. How long does all this take? "Up to 14 days," according to one police department publication. "Approximately eight weeks," according to another. "There are circumstances where it could take months," says Police Chief Cathy Lanier.

Registration easily could turn out to be so onerous or capricious that it effectively denies D.C. residents the right to keep and bear arms. The District's revised firearm storage requirements are even more clearly unconstitutional, since they unreasonably interfere with the very function, self-defense in the home, that the Supreme Court said is protected by the Second Amendment. Likewise the arbitrary ban on semiautomatic handguns, the most commonly used self-defense weapons.

"I am pretty confident that the people of the District of Columbia want me to err in the direction of trying to restrict guns," D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty told Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher.

HT: BikeBubba

Built on mud

A History of Problems

Jefferson Memorial's Signs of Sinking Raise Fresh Alarms

Excerpt:

The big problem seems to be a section of the sea wall that is breaking from the memorial's plaza and settling into the Tidal Basin. The "ring road" along the memorial's circumference also seems to be shifting, officials say.

Such movement is an alarming -- and chronic -- problem at the Jefferson Memorial, which was built in the late 1930s and early 1940s atop pilings and caissons sunk into an artificial mud flat that is about 100 feet deep. Engineers have been struggling for decades to keep everything firmed up.