(for more on this post click here)
Sen. Jim Webb’s recent embarrassing encounter with the law when an aide was arrested
for attempting to carry the senator’s gun into a Capitol Hill office building exposed another embarrassing fact for lawmakers: while congressmen are allowed to carry firearms in government buildings to protect themselves, they break the District of Columbia’s strict gun control laws by even driving a firearm to work.
Key provisions of the D.C. gun ban were struck down 2-1 in March by a conservative panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a decision that would likely be affirmed if the case is appealed to the Supreme Court, said Law School professor Stephen Smith during a Federalist Society lunch talk April 5. Smith called the case an “ideal vehicle”kj for the Bush administration to get a Second Amendment case to the Supreme Court. “These laws [in D.C.] are just so unyielding,”kj he said. “The facts are just very, very strong in favor of recognizing at least a basic individual right to keep and bear arms.”kj