All this legislative stuff has got me thinking I'm a lawyer  Not really. But it has got me more interested in the legal system and how the proceedings work. I just found this article today about a challenge to registration, "assault weapons", and "high capacity" magazines. This challenge was struck down harshly and the decision released by the Court almost makes me cry. If you want to read some lawyer-type speak, I suggest you read it. It basically says the public safety issue overrides the Second Amendment and "assault weapons" are not in common use. It also says that DC's registration isn't too many hoops to jump through.

Here are DC's registration requirements:
•The registrant must submit fingerprints and two photographs for identification purposes. D.C. CODE § 7-2502.04.
• All pistols must be submitted to the Metropolitan Police Department (“MPD”) for a ballistics identification procedure, for which the registrant must pay a reasonable fee. Id. § 7-2502.03(d).
• The registrant must “demonstrate satisfactorily a knowledge of the laws of the District of Columbia pertaining to firearms and, in particular, the safe and responsible use, handling, and storage of the same in accordance with training, tests, and standards prescribed by” MPD. Id. § 7-2502.03(a)(10).
• The registrant must have “vision better than or equal to that required to obtain a valid driver’s license under the laws of the District of Columbia.” Id. § 7-2502.03(a)(11).
• The registrant must have “completed a firearms training or safety course or class conducted by a state-certified firearms instructor or a certified military firearms instructor that provides, at a minimum, a total of at least one hour of firing training at a firing range and . . . at least 4 hours of classroom instruction.” Id. § 7-2502.03(a)(13)(A).
• The registrant must specify, inter alia, any business or occupation in which he or she has engaged during the previous five years, the intended use of the firearm, where the firearm will generally be kept and any other information that MPD deems necessary to carry out the registration provisions. Id. § 7-2502.03(b).
• Unless the registrant is a new resident of the District, MPD “shall register no more than one pistol per registrant during any 30-day period.” Id. § 7-2502.03(e).
• Registration certificates expire three years after the date they are issued, unless the registrant renews the registration. Id. § 7-2502.07a(a).
• The registrant may renew his or her registration if he or she continues to satisfy all of the initial registration requirements. Id. § 7-2502.07a(b)-(c).
• The registrant must submit to a background check once every six years to confirm that he or she continues to meet the registration qualifications. Id. § 7-2502.07a(d).
• The registrant must notify MPD if his or her firearm is sold, transferred, lost, stolen or destroyed, or if the information submitted to procure the registration changes. Id. § 7-2502.08(1).

Richard Heller famously and successfully challenged the District of Columbia's unconstitutionally strict gun ban. But on Friday, he failed in his effort to challenge the District's evolving gun regulations.

In a 30-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina upheld D.C. regulations. Mr. Heller and his team had challenged the rules governing registration as well as prohibitions on assault weapons and the lovely sounding "large capacity ammunition feeding devices."

The Heller claim was that these regulations, too, violated the Second Amendment. Judge Urbina concluded otherwise. Noted Judge Urbina:

"While the (Supreme) Court recognized that the Second Amendment protects a natural right of an individual to keep and bear arms in the home in defense of self, family and property, it cautioned that that right is not unlimited."

Applying what he termed "intermediate scrutiny," as opposed to the "strict scrutiny" used in adjudicating core cases involving, say,  racial discrimination, Judge Urbina said the test is "whether the measure is substantially related to an important governmental interest." This is stricter than the District wanted, which was an almost-impossible-to-fail "reasonableness" standard.

In this case, the judge said he would defer to the D.C. council, which:

"held extensive hearings and heard from numerous witnesses on both sides of the gun control divide before determining that assault weapons and large capacity ammunition feeding devices constitute weapons that are not in common use, are not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes and are “dangerous and unusual."

Needless to say, this fight ain't over yet.

This will almost certainly go to the COurt of Appeals for the DC Circuit, which was the Court that struck down DC's prohibition on firearms as unconstitutional in Parker v. District of Columbia, which ultimately led to the SCOTUS case and decision in Heller. So, it would appear that while this ruling seems to go against Heller, in reality it will be kicked up to what appears to be a more friendly venue on appeal and will IMHO, most likely be overturned. 

I sense that eventually SCOTUS is going to be charged with defining what is "reasonable". Anybody else see this coming?

Yeah, I see it coming, but they are gonna have to be forced to do that. It won't come easily.

Does anyone know if McDonald shows that the 2nd is incorporated, that these court cases in D.C. will have an effect on a national level?

Yeah, I see it coming, but they are gonna have to be forced to do that. It won't come easily.

Does anyone know if McDonald shows that the 2nd is incorporated, that these court cases in D.C. will have an effect on a national level?

The decision in McDonald isn't expected until June, but there has been some talk that if McDonald results in the incorporation of the Second that it could have some far reaching effects. Some have said that it may depend if the Court uses P&I or Due process to incorporate as P&I applies to only citizens, while Due Process applies to anyone, including non-citizens. If the latter the obvious impact will be laws restricting non-citizens from owning/carrying firearms.
In Hawaii, the most likely effect, at least immediately, will be that the Courts will be forced to chance their longstanding interpretation of Article 1, Section 17, which mirrors the wording of the Second Amendment, and apply it as an individual right as opposed to a collective right. There are likely more issues, but that would be a good start. 

Here is what the NRA-ILA had to say about the case:

Today, District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, dismissed Heller v. District of Columbia, NRA's case challenging D.C.'s prohibitive firearm registration requirements, and its bans on "assault weapons" and "large capacity ammunition feeding devices." Mr. Heller was, of course, lead plaintiff in District of Columbia v. Heller, decided by the Supreme Court in 2008.

Judge Urbina rejected Heller's assertion that D.C.'s registration and gun and magazine bans should be subject to a "strict scrutiny" standard of review, under which they could survive only if they are justified by a compelling government interest, are narrowly tailored to achieve that interest, and are the least restrictive means of achieving that interest.

In support of that rejection, Urbina opined that in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) the Supreme Court "did not explicitly hold that the Second Amendment right is a fundamental right," and he adopted the argument of dissenting Justices in that case, that the Court's upholding of a law prohibiting possession of firearms by felons implied that the Court did not consider that laws infringing the right of law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms should be subject to a strict scrutiny standard of review.

Judge Urbina also rejected D.C.'s contention that its laws should be required to pass only a "reasonableness test," which would "require the court to uphold a law regulating firearms so long as the legislature had 'articulated proper reasons for acting, with meaningful supporting evidence,' and the measure did 'not interfere with the "core right" the Second Amendment protects by depriving the people of reasonable means to defend themselves in their homes.'"

Instead, Urbina purported to subject D.C.'s registration, gun ban, and magazine ban to an "intermediate scrutiny" level of review, in which he first considered whether those laws "implicate the core Second Amendment right" and, if they do, whether they are "substantially related to an important governmental interest."

Urbina agreed that D.C.'s firearm registration scheme implicates the "core Second Amendment right," which, based upon the Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), he described as the right to have a firearm at home for protection. But, he noted that the Court "suggested in Heller that such requirements [as registration] are not unconstitutional as a general matter," and he concluded that D.C. had adequately articulated a compelling governmental interest in promulgating its registration scheme.

Based upon the Supreme Court's statement in Heller, that machine guns might not fall within the scope of the Second Amendment because they are not commonly owned, and relying heavily on error-ridden testimony provided by D.C. and the Brady Campaign about the use of semi-automatic firearms in crime, Urbina concluded that D.C.'s "assault weapon" and "large" magazine bans do not infringe the right to have a firearm at home for protection.

Regrettably, Urbina uncritically accepted all of the "factual" claims in the committee report of the D.C. City Council and ignored hard evidence that "assault weapons" and "large" magazines are in "common use," the standard Heller adopted. As we have detailed in other Alerts, of course, such firearms and their standard magazines holding over 10 rounds are owned by millions of Americans and their numbers are rising rapidly with every week that passes.

Stay tuned. Word about whether Judge Urbina's decision will be appealed, or whether a legislative remedy will be sought in Congress, or both, will certainly be forthcoming.