Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Last week, a federal judge reaffirmed an earlier ruling that declared Washington, D.C.’s regressive handgun permitting ordinance unconstitutional.
This week, the city is demonstrating once again that its leaders will do everything in their power to postpone, for as long as possible, that inevitable moment when they must comply with the order of the court.
The city on Monday filed a motion requesting a stay of Judge Frederick J. Scullin’s recent ruling. Scullin’s order, attended by a preliminary injunction against a portion of the city’s permitting ordinance, found that the law places too great a burden of proof on law-abiding residents to demonstrate to the city’s police force that they really need a handgun in order to be allowed to obtain one.
The city had already been ordered to go back to the drawing board and craft an ordinance that would provide a pathway for residents to obtain a handgun, following an earlier court ruling that found the city’s outright ban on handguns unconstitutional. So it came up with an ordinance that made it so difficult for people to obtain permits that those who attempted to satisfy the new requirements filed suit.
Now the city has requested a stay of Scullin’s injunction, arguing that every day that goes by without the current law in full effect is a day that will put more evil guns on the city’s streets.
“This injunction has important public safety consequences, if for no other reason than it will result in an increase in the number of guns carried publicly,” the motion warns.
Isn’t that the idea? Sounds like a feature of the injunction’s intent — not a bug.
In response to Scullin’s order that the city immediately suspend a key requirement of the contested ordinance — the requirement that permit applicants demonstrate a good reason for needing to own a handgun — the city’s attorneys immediately declared their intent to reinterpret that same order. Instead of expediting current permit applications that had already been held up, the city decided to reset the 90-day permit application review process in an effort to buy time while it orchestrated a request for a stay.
That, according to the Second Amendment Foundation (2AF), is ground for the city to be held in contempt. According to The Washington Free Beacon, 2AF responded quickly to the city’s request for a stay by filing a motion of its own — a motion to hold the city in contempt for its recalcitrance in complying with the court.
“The games continue,” that motion alleges. “Defendants [the city] supposedly not understanding the Court’s order, they will ignore it. Of course, Defendants understand the order perfectly well. They simply dislike it…
“If Defendants want a 90 day stay of the Court’s injunction, they need to ask for one. There are requirements and standards — in other words, there is actual law that governs that process. For parties in this Court, let alone government officials, to unilaterally declare a 90 day ‘court-ignoring’ period upon issuance of a preliminary injunction is simply unacceptable.”