Some people aren't happy about this. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland's 8th District), for example, isn't happy because both Maryland and Virginia have state laws forbidding the purchase of more than one firearm a month. So does D.C. This bill would disallow D.C. to have continue a similar existing law, and Van Hollen doesn't think that's fair. (The link includes both a BAD YouTube video, and the full text of his remarks.)
What this bill, the substitute bill, would do is say the people of the District of Columbia, they can’t pass the same law the people in Maryland have and the people in Virginia have. That is absolutely wrong.He's also outraged that:
This bill eliminates, for the purpose of the District of Columbia, the ban on interstate trafficking of guns that applies to every other jurisdiction in this country, which not only puts at risk people in the District of Columbia, but puts a burden and a risk on the people of all the surrounding jurisdictions. Why would we eliminate that provision which applies throughout the country just in the District of Columbia?He may be right. It may be that the the Supreme Court will soon be addressing similar infringements on the 2nd Amendment by states, not just D.C. It may come to that.
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This is a very confusing issue ... no surprise to most of us.
One of the confusing factors it that, although HR6842 has been passed by the House, and forwarded to the Senate, there was an 'alternative' (House Report 110-843) which was reported to have "replaced" the original bill.
The "Second Amendment Enforcement Act" (HR6691 -read into the house on July 31, 2008) may be the 'alternative' which was accepted by the house.
(Full Text available here ... I think.)
[This is strikingly similar to the 2003 "District of Columbia Protection Act" (HR3193), which apparently failed aborning.]
That bill seems on the surface to address the more egregious actions of D.C., including the definition of a semi-automatic firearm as a "machine gun", and requiring registration of firearms.
And just when you think you understand what's going on, you look at the dates on the bill and they don't seem, somehow, to be ... sequential.
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Without conducting a line-by-line comparison of H. Rept 110-843, HR6691, HR6842, and the original "Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975" (District of Columbia - I do have what seems to be a thorough reference here but I can't say that this quotes the Act directly), it's impossible to tell what existing statutes are being addressed by which 'new' bills.
(Wikipedia summary of FCRA/1975 here.)
My intention is not to act as a legal scholar by thoroughly compairing all existing and proposed legislation to provide a point-by-point evaluation of this body of legal action. I'll leave that to someone who is so inclined and who is qualified.
The purpose of this is only to caution you to not be too optimistic that the latter legislative actions are not necessarily going to result in what you may personally consider a pure interpretaion of the Second Amendment, as you understand it.
Please, do prepare yourself to be somewhat diappointed in this, the third round in the D.C. v 2nd Amendment, controversy and legalistic embroglio.
Remember, all participants are lawyers.
Or Politicians.
Almost 100% of the time, all politicians are lawyers, which constitutes the most deadly boulibaise of self-interest, drive for re-election and bias that the world has ever seen.
"First, we hang the lawyers"
-- William Shakespeare
"It ain't over until it's over"
-- Yogi Berra
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