SuperSet
09-02-2009, 11:33 AM
From one of my favorite newspapers, I found this article very well-written and balanced from a new gun owner. It further reinforces my opinion that there is a large, untapped segment of the population that is open to dialogue and reason.
Check it out when you get a chance. I'll paste it here since the Post site requires login. Sorry, it's lengthy but worth reading (especially for you revolver guys) :-)
---
Get a Gun in D.C. -- Do You Feel Lucky?
Not Just Strict Rules Test Your Decision
By Christian Davenport
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
It took $833.69, a total of 15 hours 50 minutes, four trips to the Metropolitan Police Department, two background checks, a set of fingerprints, a five-hour class and a 20-question multiple-choice exam.
Oh, and the votes of five Supreme Court justices. They're the ones who really made it possible for me, as a District resident, to own a handgun, a constitutional right as heavily debated and rigorously parsed as the freedoms of speech and religion.
Just more than a year ago, by a 5-to-4 decision, the court struck down the District's three-decades-old outright ban on handguns -- the most restrictive gun law in the country. In District of Columbia v. Heller, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said the Second Amendment guarantees the right of an individual to bear arms, not just Americans in a "well regulated Militia"; the District's prohibition was therefore unconstitutional.
Reluctantly, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's administration set up a process through which about 550 residents -- now including yours truly -- have acquired a handgun. But as my four trips to the police department attest, D.C. officials haven't made it easy.
Which was exactly their intent. The day the Heller decision was announced, Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) vowed that the city was still "going to have the strictest handgun laws the Constitution allows." Fenty decried the ruling, saying that "more handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence."
Under threat of additional litigation, however, the city has already had to ease some of its initial restrictions by greatly expanding the range of gun models, including semiautomatic handguns, residents are allowed to own.
Meanwhile, the battle over the right to bear arms in the nation's capital continues. The lawyer who won the Heller case recently filed a federal lawsuit attempting to overturn the District law that prohibits private citizens from packing heat in public. Earlier this year, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) attempted to do away with the city's gun registration requirements.
For now, the D.C. regulations are still in place. That meant that on my journey to gun ownership, I had to prove proficiency with a weapon on the range and in the classroom. I had to allow the District government to fire my gun before I did so its ballistics could be recorded. I had to vow that I was mentally sound and not under indictment.
In the end, I got my gun. But I keep it locked in a box in my dresser. Because despite the fact that my government trusts me to own a gun, I'm not sure how I feel about having a weapon that can send a piece of metal the size of a thimble hurtling through space with such speed that it could make someone's head explode.
I've been surrounded my whole life by people who see guns as a cause of social ill, not a cure. But what if they're wrong? I live in a dangerous part of a dangerous city. I've heard gunshots from my bedroom window clearly enough so there was no mistaking them for firecrackers. And then, about a month or so ago, my wife went out to her car and saw the glass on the ground and then the shattered window. Nothing can make you want a gun more than that sickening, helpless moment when you realize you are more vulnerable than you had thought.
* * *
If I lived in Virginia, I'd simply walk into a shop, show my ID, fill out forms and then wait while the store calls for my background check, which can take all of three minutes. If I pass, the gun is mine. Or I could buy a gun from a private citizen and forgo the background check. No safety course required (unless I'm applying for a concealed-handgun permit, which is not even an option in the District). No need to register the gun with the government (unless it's a machine gun, which is, again, not an option in the District).
In Maryland, the process is more involved (though nothing close to what you have to go through in the District): There's an application, a background check, a mandatory 45-minute safety video and then a seven-day waiting period.
But I live in the District, where the path to gun ownership, believed by some to be designed to intentionally thwart gun ownership, begins first with a trip to the police department to pick up the necessary paperwork. Then there's a five-hour safety course (four hours in the classroom, one on the firing range) with one of about 30 instructors certified to teach the class.
For those experienced with guns, the class may seem unnecessary, even ridiculous. But I'm grateful for it. I've never fired a handgun. Can't say I've ever even held one. My experience with firearms is limited to .22-caliber rifles at summer camp, and a brief dove hunting excursion in Texas in which I never fired my shotgun.
The course I choose costs $250 (group lessons are cheaper), and is taught in Temple Hills by Isaiah Abraham, a behemoth of a man who also works as a Department of Defense police sergeant assigned to the Naval Observatory. He walks me through the basics: Always treat a firearm as if it's loaded; keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire; never point at anything you don't intend to shoot. Then there's this bit of instruction that makes me shudder because I live in a Mount Pleasant rowhouse with neighbors on either side: Know your target and what's behind it because bullets can punch through doors and walls.
We go over the parts of the gun so I can identify the difference between the hammer and the firing pin. Soon I'm learning to load a .38-caliber revolver with dummy bullets.
From the moment I wrap my fingers around the grip, the gun feels uncomfortable, unwieldy and so surprisingly heavy that my entire arm dips a bit as Abraham hands it to me. A toy it is not. As I adjust my grip, the muzzle dances wildly around, pointing its deadly black eye all over the room.
Disapprovingly, he takes the gun to show me how to hold it properly, and in his experienced hands the weapon is immediately obedient. Then again, guns have long been a part of his life. Growing up in Southeast Washington, he saw one of his friends get shot in the head "for candy money" when he was in middle school. As an adult, he worked as a security guard in the projects, and later, as a D.C. cop, he patrolled some of the toughest neighborhoods when crack cocaine was driving up the homicide rate.
It's a cruel, violent world, he says. Which is why, when we get to the range, he's going to want me to shoot with my left hand as well. Why? I ask. "If you get shot in this arm," he says pointing to my right, "I don't want you to give up."
Check it out when you get a chance. I'll paste it here since the Post site requires login. Sorry, it's lengthy but worth reading (especially for you revolver guys) :-)
---
Get a Gun in D.C. -- Do You Feel Lucky?
Not Just Strict Rules Test Your Decision
By Christian Davenport
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
It took $833.69, a total of 15 hours 50 minutes, four trips to the Metropolitan Police Department, two background checks, a set of fingerprints, a five-hour class and a 20-question multiple-choice exam.
Oh, and the votes of five Supreme Court justices. They're the ones who really made it possible for me, as a District resident, to own a handgun, a constitutional right as heavily debated and rigorously parsed as the freedoms of speech and religion.
Just more than a year ago, by a 5-to-4 decision, the court struck down the District's three-decades-old outright ban on handguns -- the most restrictive gun law in the country. In District of Columbia v. Heller, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the court, said the Second Amendment guarantees the right of an individual to bear arms, not just Americans in a "well regulated Militia"; the District's prohibition was therefore unconstitutional.
Reluctantly, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's administration set up a process through which about 550 residents -- now including yours truly -- have acquired a handgun. But as my four trips to the police department attest, D.C. officials haven't made it easy.
Which was exactly their intent. The day the Heller decision was announced, Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) vowed that the city was still "going to have the strictest handgun laws the Constitution allows." Fenty decried the ruling, saying that "more handguns in the District of Columbia will only lead to more handgun violence."
Under threat of additional litigation, however, the city has already had to ease some of its initial restrictions by greatly expanding the range of gun models, including semiautomatic handguns, residents are allowed to own.
Meanwhile, the battle over the right to bear arms in the nation's capital continues. The lawyer who won the Heller case recently filed a federal lawsuit attempting to overturn the District law that prohibits private citizens from packing heat in public. Earlier this year, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) attempted to do away with the city's gun registration requirements.
For now, the D.C. regulations are still in place. That meant that on my journey to gun ownership, I had to prove proficiency with a weapon on the range and in the classroom. I had to allow the District government to fire my gun before I did so its ballistics could be recorded. I had to vow that I was mentally sound and not under indictment.
In the end, I got my gun. But I keep it locked in a box in my dresser. Because despite the fact that my government trusts me to own a gun, I'm not sure how I feel about having a weapon that can send a piece of metal the size of a thimble hurtling through space with such speed that it could make someone's head explode.
I've been surrounded my whole life by people who see guns as a cause of social ill, not a cure. But what if they're wrong? I live in a dangerous part of a dangerous city. I've heard gunshots from my bedroom window clearly enough so there was no mistaking them for firecrackers. And then, about a month or so ago, my wife went out to her car and saw the glass on the ground and then the shattered window. Nothing can make you want a gun more than that sickening, helpless moment when you realize you are more vulnerable than you had thought.
* * *
If I lived in Virginia, I'd simply walk into a shop, show my ID, fill out forms and then wait while the store calls for my background check, which can take all of three minutes. If I pass, the gun is mine. Or I could buy a gun from a private citizen and forgo the background check. No safety course required (unless I'm applying for a concealed-handgun permit, which is not even an option in the District). No need to register the gun with the government (unless it's a machine gun, which is, again, not an option in the District).
In Maryland, the process is more involved (though nothing close to what you have to go through in the District): There's an application, a background check, a mandatory 45-minute safety video and then a seven-day waiting period.
But I live in the District, where the path to gun ownership, believed by some to be designed to intentionally thwart gun ownership, begins first with a trip to the police department to pick up the necessary paperwork. Then there's a five-hour safety course (four hours in the classroom, one on the firing range) with one of about 30 instructors certified to teach the class.
For those experienced with guns, the class may seem unnecessary, even ridiculous. But I'm grateful for it. I've never fired a handgun. Can't say I've ever even held one. My experience with firearms is limited to .22-caliber rifles at summer camp, and a brief dove hunting excursion in Texas in which I never fired my shotgun.
The course I choose costs $250 (group lessons are cheaper), and is taught in Temple Hills by Isaiah Abraham, a behemoth of a man who also works as a Department of Defense police sergeant assigned to the Naval Observatory. He walks me through the basics: Always treat a firearm as if it's loaded; keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire; never point at anything you don't intend to shoot. Then there's this bit of instruction that makes me shudder because I live in a Mount Pleasant rowhouse with neighbors on either side: Know your target and what's behind it because bullets can punch through doors and walls.
We go over the parts of the gun so I can identify the difference between the hammer and the firing pin. Soon I'm learning to load a .38-caliber revolver with dummy bullets.
From the moment I wrap my fingers around the grip, the gun feels uncomfortable, unwieldy and so surprisingly heavy that my entire arm dips a bit as Abraham hands it to me. A toy it is not. As I adjust my grip, the muzzle dances wildly around, pointing its deadly black eye all over the room.
Disapprovingly, he takes the gun to show me how to hold it properly, and in his experienced hands the weapon is immediately obedient. Then again, guns have long been a part of his life. Growing up in Southeast Washington, he saw one of his friends get shot in the head "for candy money" when he was in middle school. As an adult, he worked as a security guard in the projects, and later, as a D.C. cop, he patrolled some of the toughest neighborhoods when crack cocaine was driving up the homicide rate.
It's a cruel, violent world, he says. Which is why, when we get to the range, he's going to want me to shoot with my left hand as well. Why? I ask. "If you get shot in this arm," he says pointing to my right, "I don't want you to give up."