An interesting excerpt from an article about the Supreme Court taking up the Heller vs. Washington DC case:
At the center of the case is the nation’s capital city, Washington, which has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country.
Private possession of handguns is strictly banned here, and any rifles or shotguns kept in homes must be disassembled or kept under a trigger lock.
Washington government officials say the ban, instituted in 1976, is necessary to keep street violence and murder rates down, and that the second amendment protects gun rights for people associated with militias, not individuals.
“I’m confident in our case, and our continued ability to protect residents from gun violence,” said Mayor Adrian Fenty upon filing his legal team’s brief earlier this month.
Gun violence rose sharply in the District in 2007, with the number of homicides jumping 7 percent after several years of decline.
The city had recorded 181 killings as of late yesterday, an increase that police officials attributed in part to escalating violence in the drug trade and fighting among neighborhood gangs. Nonfatal shootings and other gun crimes were also up, preliminary police data show.
What’s more, DC (which has the strictest gun laws in the nation) has the worst crime rates of its entire Maryland/Virginia area:
In the Washington region, only Prince George’s County came close to the District in the number of homicides, recording 144 killings last year, up from 136 the year before. At one point, the county sought help from federal and state law enforcement officials to deal with a spike in homicides. But the overall number of homicides in the region remained steady from 2006, as increases in the District and Prince George’s were offset by a substantial decline in Northern Virginia.
So what’s different in Virginia as compared to Washington DC to make crime go down there?
Virginia has “lax" gun laws. Which begs the question: Are DC’s tough, unconstitutional anti-gun laws really keeping people safe?