Defend Our Capital

Rand Paul has introduced a bill that would legalize concealed carry for residents of D.C., Kevin D. Williamson, writes in NRO.

The Defend Our Capital Act seeks to put into law the radical notion that Americans’ federal civil rights, as understood by the Supreme Court, apply in the federal District of Columbia, including their right to keep and bear arms. The Supreme Court has unequivocally recognized an individual right to keep and bear arms in Heller (a right incorporated against the states under the Fourteenth Amendment in the later McDonald decision), but the District of Columbia has, it its mulishness, persisted in preventing Americans there from exercising their rights. Being a federal enclave rather than a state, the District of Columbia is directly answerable to Congress, and Senator Paul’s bill would straighten out D.C. on several particulars related to Second Amendment rights.

Washington, D.C., is a majority-black city, and the worst of its crime-ridden neighborhoods are overwhelmingly black. The Democratic party, which has a long and ugly history of working tirelessly to deny African-Americans the right to keep and bear arms (as well as other civil rights and, in the case of Lyndon Johnson, the quaint right not to be lynched), remains as terrified as ever of the prospect of black people’s having the same access to firearms enjoyed by the 97 percent white population of Vermont, so its members oppose Senator Paul’s bill.

It’s interesting, notes Mr. Williamson, how libertarian-leaning Republicans such as Senator Paul bring out the totalitarian leanings in the Democrats. Read more here.