Imagine the outrage from the “civil rights industry” if bureaucrats required citizens to give government a “good reason” why they should be able to vote in an election… or speak freely… or practice their religion… or gather together in peaceful protest… or to petition the government for the redress of grievances.
There would be hell to pay.
But to some in government, the outrage reserved for other civil God-given rights does not extend to the Second Amendment right of all law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms for hunting, shooting and self-defense.
In Washington D.C., a long time bastion of gun bans and anti-Second Amendment schemes, the government has been requiring people applying for a concealed carry permit give a “good reason” why they need one or the answer is no.
Thankfully, U.S. District Judge Frederick J. Scullin Jr. for the D.C. federal district court doesn’t agree.
This past week, Judge Scullin placed a hold on Washington D.C.’s mandate that firearm owners have a “good reason” to get a concealed carry permit in the District saying the requirement is arbitrary and designed to take away citizens’ Second Amendment rights.
Prior to the hold, lawful gun owners had to go hat in hand to the government and give anti-gun bureaucrats a “good reason” why they should be allowed to exercise their gun rights. If the bureaucrats decided your reason for a permit was not a “good reason” – which was the “rubber stamp” outcome to virtually all applications – you would be flat out of luck.
Judge Scullin granted the preliminary injunction against enforcement of the “good reason” gun ban scam in response to a lawsuit brought by three gun owners who sought to overturn the D.C. gun law claiming the regulations make it impossible for the majority of law-abiding citizens to qualify for a D.C. firearms permit.
“For all intents and purposes, this requirement makes it impossible for the overwhelming majority of law-abiding citizens to obtain licenses to carry handguns in public for self-defense, thereby depriving them of their Second Amendment right to bear arms,” Judge Scullin wrote within his 23 page opinion.
Local anti-gun politicians created the D.C. gun permitting process as an end run around Judge Scullin’s ruling last year that the District’s ban on carrying firearms in public was unconstitutional.
Prior the passage of the gun permit law, the D.C government allowed law-abiding citizens with permits from other states to carry in D.C. for a period time before the District took legal action to end the brief carry period.
While this move in the chess game the D.C. government has been playing with Judge Scullin over the Second Amendment didn’t go D.C.’s way, no one should expect this latest setback to be D.C.s the last move in the game.