WASHINGTON — The attorney general for D.C. is challenging a U.S. Appeals Court’s decision that knocked down the District’s gun permit laws.
A.G. Karl Racine filed a petition for a review by the full U.S. Court of Appeals of the July decision of a three-judge panel that found the city’s conditions to apply for a permit to carry a gun on the street were unconstitutional.
“The District’s requirement that those requesting concealed-carry permits must have a ‘good reason’ for doing so is virtually identical to rules in other cities and states — requirements that four other federal appeals courts have left in place,” Racine said in a statement.
The appeals panel, which ruled 2-1, said the law violates the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
“We are bound to leave the District as much space to regulate as the Constitution allows — but no more,” wrote Judge Thomas B. Griffith. “And the resulting decision rests on a rule so narrow that good-reason laws seem almost uniquely designed to defy it: that the law-abiding citizen’s right to bear common arms must enable the typical citizen to carry a gun.”
Griffith was joined in the decision by Judge Stephen F. Williams. The dissenting opinion came from Judge Karen L. Henderson.
Since July 2008, the District has issued just 126 conceal carry licenses. In comparison, 417 permits were denied, according to D.C. police.
Several other states, including Maryland, have similar conceal-carry laws. The District’s law states that a person must show “good reason to fear injury to his or her person or property,” or other valid reasons to obtain a permit.
