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NRA: D.C. Concealed Carry Court Ruling Builds On Heller Decision

REUTERS/Bill Waugh

Kerry Picket Political Reporter
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The National Rifle Association applauded the D.C. Circuit Court ruling Tuesday that knocked down the District’s limitations on Concealed Carry permits saying the decision builds upon the landmark Supreme Court case of DC v. Heller, which confirmed the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

“The Second Amendment protects the fundamental, individual right of Americans to not only keep arms, but also to bear arms. D.C. residents have suffered under a near total ban on their right to carry a firearm for self-defense,” said Chris W. Cox, executive director, National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA). “Today’s ruling is an important step toward protecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.” (RELATED: Court Rules That Concealed Carry Is Permissible On Streets Of DC)

The Circuit Court rolled back D.C.’s mandate that citizens must provide a “good reason” to get a concealed carry permit. 

The NRA notes that an “overwhelming majority” of concealed carry permit applicants are denied a permit as a result of this requirement, so an essential ban on concealed carry permits exists for most applicants in the District.

The decision came in the wake of Republican congressmen demanding that D.C. allow for concealed carry reciprocity following the shooting at a Republican congressional baseball practice last month in Alexandria.

In the majority decision, Judge Thomas Griffith wrote, “At the Second Amendment’s core lies the right of responsible citizens to carry firearms for personal self-defense beyond the home”, and that “The good-reason law is necessarily a total ban on most D.C. residents’ right to carry a gun in the face of ordinary self-defense needs.”

“Governments should not be allowed to take constitutional rights away from law-abiding citizens,” Cox noted. He added that the decision also allows the right to carry a firearm outside one’s residence for self-defense is explicitly protected by the Second Amendment.

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