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DC "proper reason" law unconstitutional

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Fed Court: DC 'Proper Reason' Gun Law Is Unconstitutional
7/25/2017
A federal appeals court has blocked a District of Columbia law that makes it difficult for gun owners to get concealed carry permits.

A divided three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Tuesday that the law requiring people to show "good reason to fear injury" or another "proper reason" to carry a weapon infringes on residents' Second Amendment rights.

D.C. officials can ask the full appeals court to review the ruling.

Despite the court's ruling, D.C. will uphold the law for now, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said.

“Washington, D.C. is the safest it has been in years," the mayor said in a statement. "The District's 'good reason' requirement is similar to the concealed carry requirements in other states and, for now, it remains in effect.”

Under the law, reasons to get a permit might include a personal threat, or a job that requires a person to carry or protect cash or valuables. Lower court judges have disagreed on whether the law is constitutional.

Judge Karen Henderson dissented, saying she believes the law passes constitutional muster.

Attorney General Karl Racine said his office, Bowser and the D.C. Council will continue to fight for "common-sense gun rules."

"The District of Columbia's 'good reason’ requirement for concealed-carry permits is a common-sense gun regulation, and four federal appeals courts have rejected challenges to similar laws in other states," Racine said in a statement.

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson also said the ruling ran contrary to previous court decisions across the country.

“The 2-1 panel decision is at odds with four other Circuit Court decisions on this issue," Mendelson said in a statement. "Accepting this without appeal would make the District an outlier among the states, and not in a good way, on this important issue of public safety.”

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton opposed the court's ruling as well, hedging her bets that the decision could be successfully challenged.

"If appealed to the full Circuit Court, I believe the chances are excellent that this decision will be overturned, with the recognition that the District’s requirement is in line with other gun safety legislation that has survived court attacks," she said in a statement.

This decision is the latest in a long-running tussle over the city's gun laws. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the city's ban on handguns, leading the city to rewrite its gun laws. City law now requires residents to register guns kept at their homes or businesses; more than 16,500 guns were registered as of September, police told the Associated Press then.

Anyone who wants to carry a weapon outside the home needs a separate concealed carry license. The police department said in September that 89 people had been granted concealed carry permits and 374 had been denied.


Source: Fed Court: DC 'Proper Reason' Gun Law Is Unconstitutional | NBC4 Washington http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/l...Unconstitutional-436549773.html#ixzz4nuPxVG30
Follow us: @nbcwashington on Twitter | NBCWashington on Facebook
 
Despite court rule, they still will enforce it.....
And it should have been 3-0 not 2-1....

We still have work to do fellas......
 
My fantasy is that this court decision will be upheld at higher levels and extend to restrictive "may issue" states such as CA, NY, NJ, and MD.

Am I dreaming? Maybe nationwide reciprocity?
 
ripjack13 said:
Despite court rule, they still will enforce it.....
And it should have been 3-0 not 2-1....
Click to expand...

It will be reported on CNN that the court wasn't able to come to a unanymous decision was the reason why DC metro isn't enforcing the current ruling and are waiting for clarification.
 
Funny story now that I think about it.

All NFA form 1s and form 4s ask for a reason too. I like to write

To exercise my 2a rights. I'm sure that makes some people very nervous
 
From NRA-ILA
Sep 28, 2017

District of Columbia—In the latest victory for the Second Amendment rights of residents of the District of Columbia, the full federal court of appeals that sits in the District declined, on Thursday, to rehear an earlier decision by three judges of that court striking down provisions of the City’s code that barred most D.C. residents from carrying firearms for self-protection. The law at issue requires law-abiding citizens who wish to carry a firearm in public to obtain a license to do so, but restricts the issuance of licenses to those citizens who can show a specific, documented need for self-defense—for example, by proving that they had been previously attacked or were receiving death threats. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued an opinion in July invalidating that restriction as fundamentally incompatible with Second Amendment. The District then asked the full circuit court to hear the case, arguing that allowing ordinary, law-abiding citizens to carry firearms—the regime that prevails in 42 of the 50 States and in major cities including Chicago, Houston, Miami, and Philadelphia—would “increase crime and cost lives.” On Thursday, the full court issued a short order turning away the District’s plea to reconsider the case.

“We applaud the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for reaffirming the rights of ordinary, law-abiding citizens to carry firearms to protect themselves and their families in the District of Columbia,” said Chris Cox, Executive Director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action. “The District’s draconian restrictions on core Second-Amendment rights are out of step with the mainstream protections in the rest of the country, and as the D.C. Circuit’s opinion shows, they are equally out of step with our Nation’s traditions and fundamental law.”
 
UPDATE from NRA-ILA

Shall-Issue Concealed Carry Coming Soon to the Nation’s Capital!
[Underling by Scoop]

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2017
In a major development to restore the Second Amendment in the nation’s capital, District of Columbia officials announced last week that they will not appeal a lower court decision to the U.S. Supreme Court that effectively requires the District to issue concealed carry permits to qualified applicants.

The legal issue at stake had centered on whether District officials could require applicants to show a “good” or “proper” reason for needing to carry a concealed handgun that distinguished them from the general population. This meant that most otherwise qualified applicants could not obtain a permit, which is the only way to lawfully carry a loaded, accessible firearm in D.C. for self-defense.

According to a ruling by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the question was not whether a few select people could exercise their right to bear arms. The question was whether D.C.’s regime made that right available to responsible, law-abiding people in ordinary circumstances. Because the court found that D.C.’s “good” or “proper” reason requirement was effectively a ban on bearing arms by people entitled to Second Amendment protection, a majority of the panel declared the requirement invalid and barred its enforcement. The panel’s ruling came in the combined cases of Wrenn v. D.C. and Grace v. D.C.D.C. then asked the full D.C. Circuit Court to rehear the case. That request was denied, leaving D.C. with two basic choices: accept the panel’s ruling or appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On October 5, D.C. officials announced they would not seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court. This means that D.C. will no longer be able to deny concealed carry permits on what amounted to a discretionary basis.

The District’s attorney general, Karl Racine, told the Washington Post that had the District lost the case at the Supreme Court, it would have affected “may-issue” regimes in other states as well. Currently, eight other states give licensing officials discretion to deny concealed carry permits to otherwise- qualified applicants for lack of a special “need” to carry. Gun control advocates and officials from those states, Racine said, had emphasized to him how their own laws would have been jeopardized by an appeal.

Yet Racine insisted that he was “focused on the District’s interests when he made his decision,” arguing that recognition of a right to bear arms in public by the U.S. Supreme Court would have meant even more people carrying firearms in D.C. from neighboring jurisdictions.

Exactly how District officials plan to implement the D.C. Circuit’s ruling remains to be seen. D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, however, indicated to the Post that D.C.’s concealed carry laws – even without the “good” or “proper” reason requirement – are already very strict and in need of “no obvious changes.”

Police Chief Peter Newsham reiterated that sentiment to WTOP News: “All we do is eliminate the ‘good reason’ provision in the application process. All the other stringent requirements that we have in the District of Columbia to obtain a carry permit will remain intact.”

If history is any guide, however, D.C. officials will continue to push the envelope on restricting Second Amendment rights as far as possible. Your NRA will be monitoring the situation closely and will respond appropriately to any further overreaching.

At the same time, it’s important to celebrate that law-abiding Americans are now closer than they have been in nearly half a century to being able to exercise their firearms freedom in our nation’s capital. That is real progress. If it can happen in Washington, D.C., it can happen in other anti-gun jurisdictions as well. You can be assured that the NRA won’t rest until it does.
 
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