The District Chronicles

Issue date: 7/6/08 Section: Cover

Early last July, DC resident Michael Roberts was riding the Metro's green line to work. At the Columbia Heights metro stop, two men betwen their late teens and early twenties approached Roberts. One of the men brandished a gun and ordered Roberts to give them his wallet, iPod, and phone. Roberts complied. Although he made it to work, Roberts was shaken by this gun crime, which has plagued the city for years.

In response to a blistering crime wave that terrorized residents in the 70s, the city enacted a law banning ownership of handguns in 1976. At the time, DC government and law enforcement officers believed that denying the Constitutional right for individuals to bear arms was the most effective way to restore public safety.

But last week, the United States Supreme Court justices felt otherwise. In a 5-4-decision ruling, the Court struck down the ban and asserted that DC residents, like all Americans everywhere, have a right to own guns for self-defense and hunting.

The ruling has Stacey Williams, 23, confused and worried. "We have a lot of people getting killed by guns already," said Williams, a mother of two boys, a two-year old and a three-month-old. "Allowing guns now will only make it worse."

The Court ruling discouraged Bobby Blakeney too. "I think the justices should rethink their decision," said Blakeney, a safety technician at Job Barnard Elementary School in Northwest DC. Two of Blakeney's cousins were paralyzed from gun crimes and she lost a third to handgun violence in 2007. The pain still weighs heavy on her heart.

"That was last year. She was in South Carolina, standing on a porch talking and drinking," she said.   "One of my cousin's ex-boyfriend just drove up and shot at everybody on the porch. That was my favorite cousin," she sighed, her eyes welling.

But Blakeney is resigned to the Court's ruling. "I don't think there will be any change in the number of gun crimes in the District," she said. "People were carrying guns illegally way before this law came to be."

Kurt Schmoke, dean of the Howard University Law School and former mayor of Baltimore, doesn't think the ban will bring about a significant change in crime in the city.

The ruling, allows the city opportunity to create new laws, which will pass the Supreme Court's constitutional test, he said. "The District government was given great discretion on what kind of law they can make but the only restriction is that the city cannot ban handguns outright," he said. "That is what was called unconstitutional."

Continued...

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