It would be nice for once to see the arrest and imprisonment of those who ignore court decisions and violate the laws, instead of arresting and prosecuting the law-abiding citizens.
U.S. judge: Nation's capital liable for wrongful arrests under struck-down gun banA federal judge found the D.C. government liable Wednesday for wrongfully arresting between 2012 and 2014 six people who were accused of violating its ban on carrying handguns in public.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth did not rule on a motion seeking class-action status, but the decision, if upheld, could clear the way for claims for damages by as many as 4,500 people similarly arrested under the law the courts overturned in 2014, according to court filings.
The decision is the latest in a long line of litigation after Washington’s strictest-in-the-nation gun regulations made the nation’s capital a key focus for gun rights activists two decades ago. The Supreme Court struck down the District’s long-standing ban on handguns in a landmark 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, which found that the Second Amendment protected individuals’ right to own a gun in the home.
The District enacted new restrictions on openly carrying firearms in the city, but a federal judge in July 2014 and an appeals court in July 2017 again struck down regulations requiring residents to show “proper reason” to do so, such as a fear of injury or transporting valuables. The 2014 ruling also barred the city from enforcing carrying restrictions against people “based solely on the fact that they are nonresidents.”
The city subsequently repealed statutes criminalizing possession of firearms not registered in D.C., possession of ammunition by people without a D.C.-registered firearm and otherwise barring possession by nonresidents.
In Wednesday’s 19-page opinion, Lamberth rejected the D.C. government’s defense that it could not have violated the plaintiffs rights before a court struck down its statutes.
Instead, Lamberth ruled, laws banning carrying firearms in public and nonresidents from registering firearms, and permitting the arrest of nonresidents for carrying weapons or ammunition without a license, “go the core of the Second Amendment.” The judge said the amendment preserves the “right of responsible citizens to carry firearms for personal self-defense beyond the home, subject to long-standing restrictions,” quoting the 2017 opinion, Wrenn v. District of Columbia.
“The District violated the plaintiffs’ Second Amendment rights by arresting them, detaining them, prosecuting them, and seizing their guns based on an unconstitutional set of D.C. laws,” Lamberth wrote.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/dc-gun-ban-wrongful-arrests/2021/09/29/4d639960-2155-11ec-9309-b743b79abc59_story.html