A federal appeals court on Tuesday blocked the District from enforcing strict limits on carrying concealed firearms in public, restrictions that police officials have said are necessary to promote public safety in the nation’s capital.
In a 2-to-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the District’s system, which requires a “good reason” to obtain a permit, is akin to an outright ban in violation of the Second Amendment.
“The good-reason law is necessarily a total ban on most D.C. residents’ right to carry a gun in the face of ordinary self-defense needs,” wrote Judge Thomas B. Griffith, who was joined by Judge Stephen F. Williams.
“Bans on the ability of most citizens to exercise an enumerated right would have to flunk any judicial test.”
The court’s rejection of the District’s permitting system is the latest legal blow for city officials who have been forced to rewrite gun-control regulations ever since the Supreme Court in 2008 used a D.C. case to declare a Second Amendment right to gun ownership. The ruling follows proposals from Republican members of Congress that would require the District to honor concealed-carry permits from other states in the wake of a June shooting at a GOP congressional baseball practice.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/appeals-court-blocks-enforcement-of-districts-strict-concealed-carry-law/2017/07/25/29bcbdfc-7146-11e7-9eac-d56bd5568db8_story.html?utm_term=.bac734349ea1