The District of Columbia has suffered another defeat in its decades-long effort to restrict gun rights.
Today the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the District’s “good reason” requirement, which obliges individuals to demonstrate a special need before being allowed to carry a gun.
Some background: the District banned all handgun possession, including in the home, in 1976. That policy was ruled unconstitutional in the Heller I decision in 2008, which held that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to have a handgun in the home for self-defense. The District responded to Heller I by banning the public carrying of handguns. That ban was ruled unconstitutional in Palmer v. District of Columbia in 2014 (Cato’s own Tom Palmer was the named plaintiff in that case). The District was undeterred, and responded to the Palmer ruling by requiring permit applicants to provide a “good reason” why they should be allowed to carry.
The “good reason,” as defined by the D.C. government, is incredibly narrow. Simply being concerned about crime, or living/working in a crime-ridden area of the city does not suffice. Effectively the only people capable of meeting the D.C. test are those working in extraordinarily high-risk occupations or people who have received substantive, specific threats against them.
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/dcs-rule-requiring-good-reason-carry-gun-struck-down-again
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