Here's Colbert King at the Washington Post:
There's one group of District residents absolutely unfazed by today's U.S. Supreme Court ruling shooting down the District's strict handgun ban: the dudes who have been blowing away their fellow citizens with abandon since the law was put on the books 32 years ago.Well, if D.C. really was more like Dodge City, I'm betting more citizen-cowboys would be shootin' their way to a safer metropolis.
Operating under the notion that it's better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission, our shooters long ago decided not to wait for the high court's thoughts on the matter. They simply arrogated to themselves the right to keep and bear arms and, with that right, license to shoot and kill, with impunity, whatever and whenever the evil spirits moved them.
The record will show that our home-grown shooters have blown through the city's so-called strict handgun ban like John Riggins going up the middle. Over the past 20 years, there have been more than 6,500 homicides in the nation's capital, most committed with firearms, predominantly handguns. In 1976, the year the ban was put in place, the District had 135 gun-related murders, according to CNN. Last year, the number reached 143. Thus far this year, we've had 85 murders.
You thought D.C. stands for "District of Columbia? "Dodge City" is more like it.
If D.C. street thugs are pleased by anything, it's probably the fact that five of the justices - a slim majority, but that's all it takes to win - have come around to seeing things their way.
More later...
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