Everyone knows how safe the streets of Washington, DC are [where as of 2010 violent crime was three times the national average], and how DC criminals scrupulously respect the District's very restrictive gun-control laws. So of course the last thing you would want is to permit law-abiding citizens to exercise their Constitutional rights to keep and bear arms. Why, that would only lead to the Gunfight at the DC Corral. No, better to keep all the guns in the hands of criminals.
Such seems to be Eugene Robinson's logic. On today's Morning Joe, the Washington Post columnist bemoaned a federal judge's ruling that DC's total ban on public carry is unconstitutional. According to Robinson, "Congress and the courts are essentially saying no, go ahead, shoot it out." View the video after the jump.
Let's try to answer these two questions:
1. what would be Robinson's counter to the NRA's classic slogan: "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns"? and
2. whatever Robinson's personal views on the desirability of public carry may be, how does he square DC's total ban with the Second Amendment?
WILLIE GEIST: The Washington Post: police in Washington, D.C. are scrambling to deal with a new ruling that lifted the ban on carrying legally registered handguns in the nation's capital and comes after a federal judge ruled the District ban on firearms possession in public is unconstitutional. They are wanting to appeal to let new gun carry regulations. Gene Robinson, how is this playing in D.C.?
EUGENE ROBINSON: Not well at all. You know, I haven't seen anybody walking around, you know, strapped the last day or so. But, you know, the crazy thing is that people in the District of Columbia overwhelmingly want gun control and they support gun control. They don't want people, you know, owning handguns, much less carrying them around in the street, however, Congress and the courts are essentially saying, no, go ahead, shoot it out.
