The Libertarian Republic:

Georgia Rep. Barry Loudermilk said concealed-carry reciprocity should be considered for members of Congress looking to protect themselves from future acts of violence like Wednesday’s attack on lawmakers practicing for the congressional baseball game.

While the shooting– which left four injured, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise — took place in Alexandria, Va., where individuals have the right to carry guns, members were headed to Capitol Hill following practice, which falls under the jurisdiction of Washington, D.C.’s stricter gun laws.

Loudermilk, a member if the GOP’s baseball team, said the situation could have been worse had it not been for Scalise’s security detail that went after the shooter. Leadership members are provided with security, but rank-and-file members are not — leaving many wondering how to best address security threats.

“I think we need to look at some kind of reciprocity for members here, but also we need to look at security detail if Scalise hadn’t been on our team it would have been really bad,” Loudermilk told reporters. “You know, at what point do you have a congregation of members — and we’re not any more special anybody else but we are targets — do you have a security detail with you then.”

Well, apparently you feel that you are more special than other people, and listen to me Congresscritter, everyone is a target.  Everyone.  There are no exceptions.

I’ll say the same thing for you I said over reddit/r/guns to the California LEOs who wanted to keep their service weapons because … ahem … they are more special than everyone else.

No, and a thousand times NO!  If you want reciprocity, then do it for everyone.  The California LEOs over reddit/r/guns were flabbergasted that someone could actually think the way I do.  I hope you’re flabbergasted too.  So do something about it, or continue to be a target.

Choose wisely.

Fox News:

In a mixed decision, a federal appeals court on Friday struck down as unconstitutional several strict gun registration laws in the nation’s capital, but upheld other restrictions aimed at public safety.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that the city cannot ban gun owners from registering more than one pistol per month or require owners to re-register a gun every three years. The court also invalidated requirements that owners make a personal appearance to register a gun and pass a test about firearms laws.

But the court upheld other parts of the law, such as requiring that so-called long guns — including rifles and shotguns — be registered along with handguns. The ruling also allows gun owners to be fingerprinted and photographed, pay certain fees and complete a firearms safety training course.

In all, the court upheld six gun laws and struck down four.

The District of Columbia put the registration laws in place after a landmark 2008 Supreme Court decision that struck down a 32-year-old handgun ban in the District of Columbia. The high court ruled in that case the Second Amendment protects handgun possession for self-defense in the home.

A federal judge had previously upheld all the new registration laws.

District of Columbia officials argued that the laws were aimed at preserving gun owners’ constitutional rights while also protecting the community from gun violence.

But writing for the appeals court majority, Judge Douglas Ginsburg said some of the laws did not pass constitutional muster. He rejected, for example, the city’s argument that the one-pistol-per-month rule would reduce illegal trafficking in weapons.

“The suggestion that a gun trafficker would bring fewer guns into the District because he could not register more than one per month there lacks the support of experience and of common sense,” Ginsburg said.

Ginsburg, who was appointed by President Ronald Regan, was joined by Judge Patricia Millett, an appointee of President Barack Obama.

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, named to the court President George H. W. Bush, dissented in part, saying she would have upheld all the registration laws. She said the majority should have shown more deference to public officials trying to create a workable firearms policy.

Besides the always salient point about turning to the black robed tyrants to legitimize your rights, take particular note again of that last sentence (bold mine).  Henderson wanted for a court, who’s sole job it is to find constitutionality of laws – to show deference to “officials trying to create a workable firearms policy.”

Let me see.  A workable firearms policy might go something like this.  It’s none of your damn business who has guns or what kind they have.  How is that, Ms. Henderson?  Does that help you?

Washington Times:

Washington, D.C., will drop its appeal of a federal court ruling that overturned the city’s ban on carrying handguns in public, Attorney General Karl Racine announced Wednesday.

City attorneys will instead focus on defending concealed-carry laws adopted by legislators in the months after U.S. District Court Judge Frederick J. Scullin Jr. declared the ban was unconstitutional.

“We need to focus our energies not on litigating old laws, but defending new ones that our leaders enacted in good faith to comply with court rulings while still protecting public safety,” Mr. Racine said.

[ … ]

… gun owners have criticized the permitting scheme as too restrictive, citing the fact that the Metropolitan Police Department requires proof of a “good reason” why a gun owner would need to carry a firearm for protection.

Right.  Nothing has been won for gun rights.  Like the good communists they are, the D.C. politicians and police will find other ways to prevent the free exercise of God-ordained rights.  When one method runs dry, they go to a different fishing hole.  The fact that the courts have found their infringements unconstitutional means nothing to them.  They only follow the law when they agree with it.

What a bunch of loathsome, terrible, despicable men and women.

From Emily Miller:

After getting a message from someone who threatened to kill me, I was scared. I found myself in the ten-day waiting period before I could get my first gun for self-defense in my home. When the waiting was finally over, I felt a little safer.

Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Detective Kim, who had taken my case, called once a week to check on me. One week I told her that Verizon refused to give out the blocked phone number. She called Verizon’s law enforcement line to get the number, but the phone company refused without a subpoena.

The next few weeks I was a bit more relaxed but kept a careful vigilance, avoiding being caught anywhere alone. I scanned my street every morning and night to see if anyone was hiding. I’m not the only one in Washington who wanted carry rights for self-defense outside the home.

A few weeks after the call, Mary Cheh, who represents Ward 3 in the city council, happened to hold a public safety hearing about the enormous spike in crime in her ward. At the meeting, a woman stood up and said that she had been targeted by a criminal on the street.

The D.C. resident said that she was walking home on Military Rd., N.W. when a man came up to her and tried to rob her. Thinking quickly,  she claimed to be armed. “Just because I said, ‘I have a gun and will shoot,’ he ran,” she reported at the community meeting.

If there were ever a perfect example of why having the right to concealed carry is a deterrent to crime, that was it.

“So I can’t have it on the street?” the resident asked, turning to her neighbors in the rows of chairs. Someone said, “No.” The woman turned back to Ms. Cheh. “You said, ‘You can go ahead and keep it at home,’ but [this resident] answered the questions directly — you cannot have it on the streets.”

She also added, “I understand the power behind a weapon, but by the same token I think law-abiding, tax-paying citizens, we need to have some other recourse.”

I would like to say that the ultimate solution to this outrage is simply to leave Washington, D.C., and head to a location that doesn’t adhere to communist doctrine.

But the problem runs deeper than that.  My solution is too easy, and people everywhere have a right and duty to self defense.  That’s the fundamental issue with Ms. Cheh’s counsel.  There is no other recourse, since the mission of the police is not to prevent crime, but to respond to it.

Ms. Cheh’s counsel involves, quite literally, forcing law-abiding citizens to disarm (a gun in the domicile is an expensive paperweight when the threat is on the street), while only the criminals – by definition – have the guns.

It isn’t simply silly, or confusing, or wrongheaded, and it isn’t merely a policy difference between otherwise well-intentioned people.  It’s immoral, because the D.C. legal framework is forcing people to abdicate their God-given responsibilities to prevent harm to themselves in favor of the social engineering visions of utopia so precious to people like Ms. Cheh.

If your state has a similar legal framework, your mission is to get it changed.

Prior:

Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense

The Rabbi Would Take My Guns Away