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What happened to "local decisions" and "not letting big government get in the way"?

September 30, 2004
House Votes to Repeal Ban on Handguns in Washington
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - Two weeks after the Republican leadership in Congress allowed the federal assault weapons ban to expire, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to repeal the District of Columbia's 27-year-old ban on certain firearms, one of the strictest gun laws in the nation.

The vote, 250 to 171 with one member voting present, came over the strenuous objections of Mayor Anthony Williams and other district officials, including Eleanor Holmes Norton, the delegate to Congress from the District of Columbia, who called the measure "sheer lunacy" and described it as an exercise in election-year symbolism.

With the November elections approaching, Republican leaders in the House have scheduled a series of votes on hot-button social issues that they hope will force Democrats into a difficult position at the polls, particularly in areas where support for gun rights is strong. On Thursday, lawmakers are expected to take up a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage; last week, they passed a bill that would prohibit the federal courts from hearing challenges to the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Fifty-two Democrats voted to repeal the district's gun law, which bans all handguns unless they were owned and registered before 1977. The measure that was passed Wednesday would permit district residents to keep loaded firearms in their homes and businesses, to own semiautomatic assault weapons not prohibited by federal law, and would end both the ban on private handgun ownership and the city's firearms registration program.

Backers, including the National Rifle Association, hailed the vote as a significant victory for the rights of gun owners. It was the second such victory this month; on Sept. 13, the 10-year-old federal ban on ownership of 19 types of semiautomatic assault weapons expired, despite polls showing widespread support for it.

"For years, Americans citizens in Washington, D.C., have had their right to self-protection denied them, and it's time to set things right," Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House majority leader, said after the vote Wednesday. "Washington residents are American citizens and therefore deserve the right to bear arms to defend themselves as much as anyone else."

But the Senate is unlikely to take up the measure this year.

"It's an election vote," said Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York. "People want to show they're for guns. It has nothing to do with D.C."

At a news briefing on Tuesday, Mr. DeLay said the gun control and marriage amendment votes were both "important to our members."

The measure was opposed by the police chief, the school superintendent and all 13 members of the City Council. As the vote was taking place Wednesday, a small band of residents lined up outside the Capitol to protest what they regarded as meddling by outsiders in Congress.

Although the district has a limited form of home rule, federal lawmakers can still override local decisions.

The chief author of the gun measure was Representative Mark Souder, Republican of Indiana. Mr. Souder cited statistics showing that Washington's murder rate was eight times the national average as evidence that "the city is a failed laboratory experiment in gun control policy." He called the vote "a victory for citizens, and citizens' groups such as the N.R.A., who have called their congressmen."

But the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a national advocacy group, said the gun ban was working, and cited evidence showing that guns used in crimes committed in the district were brought in from elsewhere.

"Today's vote is a slap in the face to district residents and the principle of home rule," Joshua Horwitz, the group's executive director, said in a statement. "The residents of Washington, D.C., decided long ago to live in a city free of handguns. Ideologues from other parts of the country ought to respect their request."

Within hours of the vote, Republican Congressional candidates began using it to criticize opponents who voted to keep the gun law intact. In Vermont, for example, Greg Parke, who is running against Representative Bernard Sanders, an independent who usually votes with Democrats, issued a news release saying, "If Sanders isn't protecting the Constitutional rights of Washington residents, how can he be trusted to protect Vermonters' rights?

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Here's the Post's version of it. As for "Only the District of Columbia prohibits a person from having a firearm assembled and loaded at home for the purpose of self-defense", huh?

House Votes to Repeal D.C. Gun Limits
City Leaders Upset, But Senate Passage Is Deemed Unlikely

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 30, 2004; Page B01

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a bill yesterday repealing most of the District's gun laws, in a vote that handed an election-season victory to gun rights groups and was denounced by the city's leaders as a historic violation of home rule.

By a vote of 250 to 171, the House passed the D.C. Personal Protection Act, which would end the District's 1976 ban on handguns and semiautomatic weapons, roll back registration requirements for ammunition and decriminalize possession of unregistered weapons and possession of guns in homes or workplaces.

The bill also would prohibit the mayor and D.C. Council from enacting gun limits that exceed federal law or "discourage . . . the private ownership or use of firearms."

The measure now goes to the Senate, where it has almost no chance of passing. With little more than a week before Congress recesses for the fall campaign, only major legislation and uncontroversial measures are likely to reach the floor, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has indicated.

But gun rights groups plan to use the House vote in campaign literature to mobilize supporters.

Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.), the bill's sponsor, called the vote a bipartisan victory for District residents' constitutional right to bear arms. During an hour-long debate, Souder and his allies referred to Washington as the "nation's murder capital" more than a dozen of times, arguing that the city's homicide rate shows that its restrictions on guns are ineffective.

Bill supporters note that the D.C. homicide rate was 72 percent higher in 2001 than it was in 1976, while the national rate had dropped by 36 percent. Opponents say that the D.C. rate is at a 20-year low and has fallen 55 percent since 1994.

"The D.C. handgun ban . . . has failed miserably. This bill is demanded by the people of the United States," Souder said. "Only the District of Columbia prohibits a person from having a firearm assembled and loaded at home for the purpose of self-defense."

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) assailed the "ludicrous logic . . . that gun safety laws cause murders" and said the vote amounted to political grandstanding. She and other opponents of the bill said increasing the supply of guns would undermine homeland security initiatives, lead to more bloodshed in a city in which 16 children have been shot to death this year and trample the unanimous will of the District's elected leaders, police chief and school superintendent.

"I have seen various members of Congress try to do some low-down, dirty, mean things to the people of the District of Columbia, all to promote their own political agendas against the will of the people who live here," Norton said. "That we are here discussing this matter is yet a new low."

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) also spoke against the bill, noting that 97 percent of the guns used in crimes in the District come from beyond the city borders. "No one should question the importance of keeping fully loaded assault weapons off the streets of the District," Davis said. "There is an important place for debate on D.C. gun laws -- that is in the chambers of the D.C. Council, not the Congress."

Voting for the bill were 198 Republicans and 52 Democrats. Opposed were 148 Democrats, 22 Republicans and one independent.

In a sign of how the politics of gun control have changed in Congress, the vote was almost the opposite of a 1999 House attempt to repeal the District's gun laws, which failed 250 to 175. Thirty-four House members -- 24 Republicans and 10 Democrats -- who voted five years ago to preserve the city laws switched sides and co-sponsored Souder's bill.

They include Rep. Charles W. Stenholm (D-Tex.), locked in a tough battle in a redrawn district; Rep. Deborah Pryce (Ohio), now chairman of the House GOP conference; and Rep. Anne M. Northup (R-Ky.), who represents a swing district based in Louisville.

"For House Democrats sitting in rural or conservative districts who are worried about being labeled as culturally out of step with their districts, this is their one opportunity to make a vote on the gun issue and cement their image among voters," said Amy Walter, House elections analyst for the Cook Political Report in Washington.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company