DC Officials Fear Their Own Citizens
September 9th, 2008 by jack
According to the Washington Post, Congress may, for once, actually do its duty under the Constitution and rewrite the DC gun laws, removing the ban on semi-automatic handguns and rifles, and removing the ban on citizens’ purchasing firearms outside of DC. But of course, DC officials object:
“You could drive a truck through this language,” said Peter Nickles, acting D.C. attorney general. He noted that the bill would bar the D.C. government from passing any laws that would “unduly burden” residents wanting to have or use firearms as long as they met federal requirements.
“I’m very concerned that, under that legislation, the gun-rights advocates could challenge almost any restriction we’ve placed on gun ownership,” Nickles said. Opponents said they feared that if the bill became law, people could carry loaded semiautomatic weapons or .50-caliber sniper rifles in the city.
Actually, one can legally carry semi-automatic weapons in Virginia, although there are magazine capacity restrictions in some municipalities:
§ 18.2-287.4. Carrying loaded firearms in public areas prohibited; penalty.
It shall be unlawful for any person to carry a loaded (a) semi-automatic center-fire rifle or pistol that expels single or multiple projectiles by action of an explosion of a combustible material and is equipped at the time of the offense with a magazine that will hold more than 20 rounds of ammunition or designed by the manufacturer to accommodate a silencer or equipped with a folding stock or (b) shotgun with a magazine that will hold more than seven rounds of the longest ammunition for which it is chambered on or about his person on any public street, road, alley, sidewalk, public right-of-way, or in any public park or any other place of whatever nature that is open to the public in the Cities of Alexandria, Chesapeake, Fairfax, Falls Church, Newport News, Norfolk, Richmond, or Virginia Beach or in the Counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Henrico, Loudoun, or Prince William.
So why do DC officials fear their own people? Tyrants fear their own people. Are the residents of DC inferior to the residents of Virginia? Is it because DC is 56.5% Black? Well, Richmond is 57.2% Black, but somehow Richmond’s violent crime rate is a lot lower, 2474 per 100,000 versus DC’s 8839 per 100,000. The property crime rate is also lower in Richmond, 5613 per 100,000 versus 31,581 per 100,000 in DC.
So, considering that Richmond has a higher percentage of Blacks, but is much safer than DC, we can rule out race as the determining factor in DC’s crime rate. Could it be the poverty rate? No. Richmond’s poverty rate stands at 21.4%, while DC’s averaged 18.1% between 2006 and 2007.
Could it be, perhaps, that vicious circle that DC’s crime rate is out of control because the people cannot protect themselves and their property from criminals, and the DC officials, thinking their people are inferior, as demonstrated by the crime rates, keep their people from protecting themselves, thus raising the crime rate?
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 8:34 am and is filed under 2nd Amendment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Richmond is a poor city, but it a far better place to be than DC. The gun laws in Richmond make more sense, and the poor in Richmond are more likely to be working poor.
September 9th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
i’m not sure the poverty cutoff is that telling, poor areas in dc look far worse than poor areas in richmond. i’d be curious about drug activity and population density. besides, a gun ban in a city doesn’t do any good if the surrounding counties make them available. a “dry” county isn’t that successful when you can go to the next county and buy beer. and why do you keep bringing up race?
September 9th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
What’s population density got to do with it? In Canada, the highest crime rates are in small urban areas, and the highest murder rates are in rural areas.
Drug activity is no more than another symptom. The drugs come in where the criminals can flourish.
A gun ban never does any good because the criminals tend to be younger and stronger then the general population. If all guns were to magically disappear, how would the elderly protect themselves from criminals?
I bring up race in this case, and in others, to show the effects of culture.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
i’m a bit too tired to check the stats now, but i do know that in b-more, many of the victims of homicide were involved in the drug trade or other criminal activity (i imagine they also had guns). not blaming victims here, but maybe drug trade activity increases crime and, i could be wrong, but drug use and trade may be worse in dc than richmond. just a guess.
“Drug activity is no more than another symptom. The drugs come in where the criminals can flourish.” I don’t really understand what you are saying, would guns stop drug use? i think drugs come first, then the crime.
and this race stuff is just ironic. many conservatives i hear suggest we should be color blind in hiring and that biases do not exist in any damaging form, yet race is a dominant theme in all these crime stats.
September 9th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
“maybe drug trade activity increases crime and, i could be wrong, but drug use and trade may be worse in dc than richmond. just a guess.”
Sure, but a dealer in Richmond cannot just open up on a rival without worrying that the non-combatants might open up on him. The law-abiding citizens in Richmond can also establish armed Neighborhood Watch patrols. That might put a damper on the drug trade.
The point of my bringing up race here was to show that it is not a factor.
September 9th, 2008 at 11:02 pm
One further point wrt Richmond, keeping guns out of the hands of criminals vs. law abiding citizens :