Ms. Miller decided to buy a gun after she was the victim of a home invasion while dog and house sitting for friends in 2010:

I want a gun. I don’t feel safe living in Washington, D.C. and want to protect myself. I’m starting today by going down to City Hall to find the gun permit office to tell them, “I want a gun.” This series will follow me as I navigate the city bureaucracy and outdated rules in order to legally buy a firearm.

My desire for a gun started when I had to face down over a dozen criminals on an empty cul de sac in Washington, D.C., armed only with a Blackberry.

It was New Year’s Day 2010, and I’d been staying in the house to dog sit for friends who were on vacation. I’d returned from walking the dog when I saw a man coming from the house. “What are you doing?” I asked, sensing something was off with the situation. The Golden Retriever just stood next to me with a slack leash.

“We’re here to clean the pool,” the man said. He looked nervous and his eyes were blood-shot.

I was pretty sure my friends hadn’t called in a swimming pool emergency during the middle of winter. “No, we didn’t call for you,” I said.

“Oh, then it must be the house next door,” he said, smiling nervously. He turned and walked away quickly.

I’d left the front door unlocked since I was walking the dog for less than ten minutes. (I know, lesson learned.) After the man left, I was still suspicious so I went inside, grabbed my Blackberry and clicked on the icon for the camera. I walked down the street, and as I turned the corner, I saw about 15 scruffy young men standing around two pickup trucks. We were at the end of a woody, dead-end road.

I nervously held up my Blackberry to take a quick photo of them and the license plates. Suddenly, the blood-shot-eyed guy darted out, blocking the shot. “What are you doing?” he asked. I looked around at all the men staring at me and was suddenly scared. “Nothing, I’m um, just going now,” I said as I put my Blackberry down instead of taking the picture around him and went home.

To me the single most striking thing about Ms. Miller’s experience, is that the process just buy a pistol in our nation’s capitol is virtually identical to the process for obtaining concealed carry permit in most other jurisdictions. There’s simply no logical reason for making that difficult just to legally purchase a firearm.

I’m all for reasonable restrictions like background checks, waiting periods, but forcing someone to go through a complex multi-step process, that takes months to complete and is virtually identical to the one for obtaining a concealed carry permit almost anywhere else is insane. The reason for it to discourage law-abiding citizens from exercising their Constitutionally protected rights… And let me clear about this, this isn’t simply a second amendment issue, everyone one of us has a God-given right to feel safe in our own home and to protect ourselves, our families and our property from those who would do us harm. There’s an old cliché to says when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

It’s true if you live in densely populated urban area the average response time to a 911 call around 7 minutes… But rural areas it can often take 20 minutes or more for police to arrive.

Anyway, Ms. Miller recently reached something of milestone in quest to legal obtain a handgun: She put done her money and ordered a Sig Sauer P229 in 9mm. Now all she has to do is a few more hoops before she can legally take possession of her pistol:

And, that is the “but” in this story. Although I have paid and ordered the gun, I can’t take possession of it until it is transferred to Mr. Sykes, and I get an approved registration certificate.

In order to get this certificate, I still have to do the following: take a written test on the city’s firearm laws; get Mr. Sykes to fill out the application form; have the eligibility form notarized; get two passport photos and prove that my eyesight is better or equal to the driver’s license requirement (20/70 in best eye and field of vision of at least 140 degrees).

Next, I have to take all the forms to the registry office; pay $60 in fees; wait five days for the application to be approved; wait an additional five days for Mr. Sykes to be able to release my gun; and take the gun to the police for a ballistics test.

Finally, if I pass all of these steps, I should be able to take possession of the gun that I already bought.

The sad truth is, Washington D.C. is one of  America’s most violent cities. The district’s arcane, restrictive gun laws haven’t made anyone safer, in fact one could argue that all the district’s decades old de facto gun ban has accomplished is to insure that criminals have largely defenseless population to prey upon.

Every moment of that day is burned indelibly into our memories, I can remember every detail, the sites, the sounds, the  smells, it’s still feels like it all happened just yesterday.

An off-duty Washington D.C. police detective went berserk and began waving his gun around when his Hummer was pelted with snowballs during this weekend’s storm.

“Yes I did (pull my gun), because I got hit with snowballs!” the cop said in a video of the confrontation posted to YouTube by a witness.

He identified himself as Det. Baylor or Det. Bailey – the video’s sound is unclear.

D.C. Police, who say they are investigating the Saturday incident, did not identify the officer but said he is a veteran detective.

The Washington City Paper published a photo of the cop with his gun drawn but pointed at the ground.

Here’s video of the incident courtesy of Reason TV:

I don’t see anything in that video that justifies the detective drawing his gun… Sure he got hit in the face with a snowball, but that in and of itself doesn’t justify pulling a gun. The best thing he could have done was stayed in his car, pulled down block and called for backup. By getting out of his car when and where he did he escalated the situation unnecessarily. Police work is tough enough already and all incidents like this do broaden the divide between the police and the public they serve.

Oh and for the record, throwing snowballs at a moving car in the middle of snow storm is a monumentally stupid thing to do!

Related

• Snowball fight takes dangerous turn when police officer draws gun – Washington Post
• Cop Admits to Pulling Gun on Snowballers – NBC Washington
• Snowball Fight Takes Dark Turn – WJLA TV

Justice Department lawyers concluded in an unpublished opinion earlier this year that the historic D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress is unconstitutional, according to sources briefed on the issue. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who supports the measure, ordered up a second opinion from other lawyers in his department and determined that the legislation would pass muster.

A finding that the voting rights bill runs afoul of the Constitution could complicate an upcoming House vote and make the measure more vulnerable to a legal challenge that probably would reach the Supreme Court if it is enacted. The bill, which would give the District a vote in the House for the first time, appeared to be on the verge of passing last month before stalling when pro-gun legislators tried to attach an amendment weakening city gun laws. Supporters say it could reach the House floor in May.

In deciding that the measure is unconstitutional, lawyers in the department’s Office of Legal Counsel matched a conclusion reached by their Bush administration counterparts nearly two years ago, when a lawyer there testified that a similar bill would not withstand legal attack.

Holder rejected the advice and sought the opinion of the solicitor general’s office, where lawyers told him that they could defend the legislation if it were challenged after its enactment.

Ed Morrissey asks “What part of “support and defend the Constitution” does Holder not understand?“… I’m wondering the same thing, the Constitution is quite plain on the matter. The Office of Legal Counsel’s opinion is not in any way out of line or rogue it’s the same position that the OLC has held since at least 1963.

Ed Whelan was more here.

Related

• Attorney General Holder is Subverting the Constitution – Kim Priestap, Wizbang