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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

House OKs D.C. gun-law repeal

Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post

WASHINGTON – The U.S. House of Representatives voted Wednesday to repeal virtually all the District of Columbia’s gun laws – as urged by gun-rights groups to deliver a victory before the November election over the vehement objections of Washington leaders who denounced what they called a historic violation of home rule.

Voting 250-171, the House approved the D.C Personal Protection Act, which would end the District’s ban on handguns and semi-automatic weapons, roll back registration requirements for ammunition and other firearms, and decriminalize possession of unregistered weapons and carrying a gun in one’s home or workplace. The bill also would prohibit the District’s elected mayor and council from passing gun limits that exceed federal law or “discourage … the private ownership or use of firearms.”

The bill goes to the Senate, where it has almost no chance of passage. A similar bill is bottled up in committee, and Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has indicated that with little more than a week before Congress recesses to campaign, only noncontroversial measures may come to the floor.

Bill sponsor Rep. Mark Edward Souder, R-Ind., called the vote a bipartisan victory for District residents’ constitutional right to bear arms. During an hourlong debate, allies cited a persistent increase in the city’s high murder rates since the gun ban was enacted in 1976 – up 72 percent while the national average has fallen 36 percent – as proof of the failure of gun control.

“This bill has 45 Democratic cosponsors, in addition to a majority of the Republican Party. When we talk about bipartisan legislation, this is bipartisan legislation,” Souder said. “The D.C. handgun ban has failed, it has failed miserably. This bill is demanded by the people of the United States.”

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District assailed the “ludicrous logic … that gun safety laws cause murders,” saying the city’s homicide rate is at a 20-year low. She said the freer flow of guns onto city streets would undermine homeland security initiatives, worsen bloodshed in a city that has seen 16 children shot to death this year and trample the will of the District’s elected leaders who unanimously opposed the bill.

“I have seen a lot of low-down, dirty, mean things done to the people of the District of Columbia, all to promote their own political agendas, against the will of the people who live here,” Norton said. “That we are here discussing this matter is yet a new low.”

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said, “No one should question the importance of keeping fully loaded assault-weapons off the streets of the District.” He added, “There is an important place for debate on D.C. gun laws – that is in the chambers of the D.C. Council, not the Congress.”

Voting in favor of the bill were 198 Republicans and 52 Democrats. Opposed were 148 Democrats, 22 Republicans and the House’s sole independent.