It’s safe to say that Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) doesn’t live in the District. It’s also safe to say that from his house in the posh Federal Heights neighborhood of homogenous Salt Lake City he has little grasp of what the introduction of handguns would do in America’s most murderous city.
In the midst of a tumultuous debate on Capitol Hill over the Assault Weapons Ban and gun show background checks, and under pressure from Senate Republican leaders, Hatch abandoned his attempt on Tuesday to lift the 28-year-old ban on handguns in the District. For the safety of D.C.’s citizens, the Senate was right to reject this latest attempt to tie the fate of the nation’s capital to federal partisan politics.
D.C. registered 243 homicides in 2003, of which 77 percent were gun-related, putting it ahead of Baltimore as the city with the highest murder rate in the nation. Metropolitan Police Chief Charles Ramsey warns those numbers could get worse if handguns are allowed back on District streets.
Mere speculation, however, is moot in this debate, as the shooting deaths of two District high school students confirm the horrific consequences that come with making guns more readily available on city streets. On Oct. 30, 16-year-old Devin Fowlkes was shot at a dance at Anacostia High School. On Feb. 2, star Ballou High School football player James Richardson died in a hail of bullets in his school cafeteria.
The threat of gun violence is not limited to the seemingly far-off ghettos of Southeast. Last semester, several Georgetown students fell victim to gun violence, including six residents of a Prospect Street home whose house was entered by an armed intruder. Protected by unarmed Department of Public Safety Officers, Georgetown students would be foolish to support the extension of handgun rights into the District.
Gun advocates, including the National Rifle Association and Hatch, point to the famously strict laws of D.C. to decry what they see as an erosion of basic rights in America. Such abstract arguments should fall on deaf years among D.C. residents.
