DC Evades Supreme Court Ruling (July 2008)

I wanted to update you on my efforts to uphold Second Amendment rights after the Supreme Court rejected the ban on handguns in our nation's capital, Washington, DC. In spite of the Supreme Court's decision overturning the unconstitutional DC gun ban, the DC City Council decided to reaffirm many of the components of the original ban. One egregious example requires that hand guns kept inside the home for self defense be stored unloaded unless the homeowner is aware of an attack about to happen or an attack is already occurring. Because DC is still maintaining much of its ban on handguns, the citizens of DC now require action from Congress to uphold their rights. I believe that our Second Amendment rights are highly important, and I am working to ensure that Congress passes a law reaffirming the rights of DC citizens. I am supporting a bill before Congress, H.R. 1399, that would repeal several of the restrictive gun control regulations in DC. Unfortunately, the House Democratic majority is not allowing this bill to come to the House floor for a vote. Therefore, I have joined with several members of Congress in signing a special petition that would require a vote on the bill, but unfortunately, the petition only has 158 of the 218 signatures necessary. There are 91 supporters of the bill that have not signed the petition, and if just 60 of those supporters would sign it, the House would quickly vote on restoring Second Amendment rights to DC.  The Supreme Court has affirmed an individual right to own a firearm, and now Congress needs to take action to ensure that the laws uphold those rights. I encourage you to let friends and family members across our nation know about this issue so that they can urge their representatives to join me in signing this special petition in Congress.