Via email from Rolf.
Thousands cleared by judge’s ruling will seek gun arrest damages
A decision by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth in another fight over guns created by the local government in Washington means it could be getting costly for taxpayers there.
It’s because the judge’s decision “has cleared the way for claims for damages by as many as 4,500 people” who were arrested under the now-defunct law against carrying handguns in public.
The problem was outlined by constitutional expert Jonathan Turley, who explained the specific case applies to six people, but the damages could be claimed by thousands.
“Those rising costs do not seem to register with the D.C. City Council,” he explained. “The city could appeal and argue that, at the time of the arrests, it was not clear that the underlying law was unconstitutional.”
Lamberth, however, already rejected that claim and ruled that the law was clearly unconstitutional when the city passed it.
The decision from Lamberth noted how D.C. effectively had “banned non-residents from possessing a firearm,” and prevented anyone “from carrying a weapon in public.”
It’s not a prosecution under 18 USC 242, but it’s a step in the right direction.
With any luck, some very smart lawyers (“paging Alan Gura…..” but surely he must have some like-minded friends) will promptly and thoroughly bring the District of Columbia to abject poverty through bankruptcy and financial ruin by steadfastly pursuing very high dollar lawsuits for each of the 4500.
The perfectly legal financial destruction of a government is not quite the same as prosecution under 18 USC 242, which would be delicious, but it would send a message.
As for the residents of D.C., they deserve to get exactly what they’ve been voting for all these years so I’m more than a bit short on sympathy; in this instance, when one has one’s opponent down is not the time to suddenly go all Marquess of Queensberry, it’s the time to finish them off, however unseemly that may appear to the weak kneed and frail of heart. If one has been paying attention to the malicious machinations of D.C. government over the past 50 years regarding firearms and the basic civil right of personal defense, especially if one has been, or knows some who have been directly affected by it, inflicting maximum scorched earth will seem much too kind and benevolent.
Some would probably be willing to substitute prosecution under 18 USC 242 in exchange for financially destroying D.C. government. To those I can only counsel “do both.”
That D.C. is wholly owned by Congress under the Constitution its financial destruction might also send a message to Capitol Hill regarding the Second Amendment.
The only thing that will change DC is when the 2A becomes a law unto itself. Regardless of jurisdiction.
“becomes”? It already is the Supreme Law of the Land. The problem is, and always has been, that next to nobody in any of the three branches of government has any intention of obeying the Supreme Law of the Land, and they continue to get away with their treasonous behavior.