Transporting a gun in DC
Emily Miller on what a PITA it is:
The District’s 22-page handgun registration packet offers only three bullet points for guidance on legal transport, so many questions go unanswered. D.C. residents have to sort through these vague rules on gun transport in order to go to a shooting range. However, these same transport laws also apply to any U.S. citizen who is driving through the nation’s capital with a firearm.
If you use public transportation, you can’t bring ammo and the gun stays in a locked box. But there are no shooting ranges on the Metro or bus lines. Once again, gun ownership in D.C. seems to require car ownership, thanks to the city’s laws.
According to the law, I’m only allowed to take my gun out of my home when “travelling directly to or form a lawful firearm-related activity” — which are registration, hunting and shooting at a practice range. If I drive, the gun has to be unloaded and in a locked container. Those requirements were clear in the laws.
Seems like an undue burden.
February 22nd, 2012 at 10:59 am
>Seems like an undue burden.
Specifically designed to prevent you from possibly defending yourself.
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:05 am
Everything that comes out of DC is an undue burden.
February 22nd, 2012 at 11:41 am
She has at least inoculated herself somewhat from malicious actions by rabid anti-gunners, DC political operatives and Joyce Foundation grant writers who might anonymously call the police to claim she is illegally transporting her firearm.
You know, just for laffs, get her felony-stopped, spread-eagled on the street, and get her car detail-searched! Even better from their perspective if the police actually find a technical violation like a loose round on her back seat, or something worse!
She has recorded publicly her express intent to follow the law, and demonstrated her contacts with law officers by name regarding her attempts to have the byzantine laws explained to her in clear terms regarding specific hypotheticals.
I just hope she never has to show this article to a judge in an attempt to explain that she tried to follow the law, despite it being essentially impossible.
February 22nd, 2012 at 12:22 pm
“Undue burden”? Naw, it’s just one of those “reasonable restrictions” the Supremes said was okay.
February 22nd, 2012 at 1:04 pm
A republican congressman should start adding riders to unrelated bills, to require DC to impose exactly the same requirements for transporting and storing alcohol as for transporting and storing firearms and ammunition.
Alcohol kills far more people in the US than guns (especially legally-owned guns); alcohol is statistically more of a danger to minors than guns. It would be difficult to succintly articulate a reason for why alcohol is less of a public hazard than legally-owned guns.
February 22nd, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Would someone remove the Monuments and the Museums and build an “Escape from New York” wall on the Capital Beltway?