Published: July 21, 2008 03:39 pm         

Wait until I load, please

With a little help from the U.S. Supreme Court, the people who run the District of Columbia have come to the realization that it is perfectly legal for law abiding citizens to protect and/or defend themselves via the use of handguns.

Good for them... the supreme jurists, that is. The vote wasn’t unanimous, but it didn’t need to be.

A law against owning handguns in Washington has been struck down. The law always amazed me. There were always plenty of handguns in the district. Even a cursory viewing of a D.C. television station or a quick read of a D.C. newspaper made that evident. The guns, though, were in the hands of those who would do societal harm with them. What a surprise. Thugs, thieves, murderers, maimers and even garden variety criminals didn’t seem to pay attention to that particular law... or to any other law.

Even Carl Rowan, the late syndicated columnist who ranted about the evils of owning guns, used a handgun to shoot a person who went for an uninvited swim in the pool at the writer’s D.C. home. Tsk, tsk.

Just because the highest judicial rulers in the country said Washington residents may own and use handguns doesn’t mean the people who run the District of Columbia are going to make it easy for them to do so.

According to a recent Associated Press article, the D.C. Council passed emergency legislation this week saying that the only reason to keep a handgun at home is for self defense and that the firearm must be either disassembled or equipped with a trigger lock. In any event, it may not be kept in a loaded fashion.

Well.

An unloaded handgun — an assembled one, I’m talking about — is not as useful as a claw hammer in a personal confrontation. I’m going to make a wild guess that a person who is entering or has entered a D.C. home to rob, maim, pillage and plunder is probably not doing it with a disassembled handgun.

The D.C. Council proclaimed as well that a homeowner’s handgun may be loaded or assembled for use only if there is the “reasonably perceived threat of immediate harm.”

OK.

I’m guessing that a person who has broken through your door or a person who has grabbed your wife around the neck has in mind to do immediate harm. That being the case, the law abiding D.C. resident would then proceed to remove the trigger lock or to assemble the handgun, load it, and take care of business. Doesn’t seem like much protection to me.

I like the approach of states such as West Virginia where folks who don’t have a rap sheet may not be denied the ability to arm themselves, even in public settings.

West Virginia was recently looking for a new slogan for border signs, something to replace “West Virginia, Open For Business.”

How about, “Welcome To West Virginia. It Is Legal For Our Law-Abiding Residents To Arm Themselves With Deadly Force.”

Now that’s a deterrent.

Contact Michael A. Sawyers at msawyers@times-news.com.