Friday, June 27

Guns aren't DC's Problem - Lack of will to Jail Criminals is

Everyone agrees that Washington, DC has a crime problem. For the past couple decades DC has blamed guns as one of the causes of the crime problem in DC. With that, they have banned legal handgun ownership. This has done nothing to reduce DC's gun crime and statistics show that gun crime in DC actually rose after guns were banned. Well, as we all know now, DC's gun ban has been declared unconstitutional in the Supreme Court's Heller decision. The city's leadership is of course in panic that they are actually going to have to permit some people, who are not committing crimes, the ability to exercise their right to own a gun.

Fenty, Nickles and Lanier emphasized that they will continue vigorously enforcing other gun-control laws that the court did not disturb—including the law that all firearms including handguns must be properly registered with the Metropolitan Police Department—and considering other ways to lessen gun violence in the District. - DC Government Press Release 'District Government Reacts to Heller Ruling'
This is their problem, enforcing gun-control laws. They don't do it well. For a city that bans guns, they have more gun crime than the two neighboring states together. (Excluding the messed-up city of Baltimore from that tally.) I had watched an interview a year or two ago concerning the car theft problem in DC. The officers of the grand theft auto task force were bitter that it was common to catch people and then catch them again the very next day, because judges released them from jail.  This of course is due to a lack of will to punish criminals as the liberals see them as victims too, and don't want them to become victims of the justice system, or 'unfairly' imprisoned because they are a minority. So, back out onto the streets they go.

Take this recent crime reported in the Police Blotter section of the DC Examiner:
Armed woman arrested after entering police HQ

A woman was arrested after she walked into the Metropolitan Police headquarters Thursday afternoon, pointed a gun at one of the armed security guards, demanded his weapon, then pulled the trigger on her handgun, according to court documents.

When the gun failed to fire, the security guard grabbed the woman, Cynthia Marlene Nixon, and wrestled her to the ground. Police found 36 rounds of ammunition and two plastic bags of marijuana. Nixon told detectives that she wanted to rob a police officer of his weapon, court documents state. - Scott McCabe, DC Examiner
So what did they charge her with?
Nixon was charged with assaulting a police officer while armed, authorities said. She was ordered held without bond by a judge yesterday in D.C. Superior Court. - Washington Post
What about attempted robbery? Illegal use of a firearm? Illegal possession of a firearm? Trespassing? Attempted Murder? How about drug charges as well? One problem why there is all this criminal activity in DC is because the criminals know that the penalties are not so bad if they get caught. This lady tried to kill an officer and is only being charged with 'assault'.

Even in the eyes of this ruling, their contempt for enforcement is showing:
MPD will establish an amnesty period during which residents who already own handguns that were not registered previously can register them without fear of criminal liability under District law.
Just why is DC going to permit the registration of illegal handguns?  How about instead offering an amnesty for turning them in, period.  Let them buy their next gun legally.  Are they really saying that they will permit registration of a gun purchased illegally on the street?  That's crazy seeing that it was those guns that were the problem in the first place.  It is almost like they are going to make sure that gun crime goes up, just to prove their point that they were right all along.

----------

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't worry. Here in DC we have three whole weeks to work on some Scalia-proof gun laws.

I've started drafting some:

http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2008/06/27/dc-gun-license/