D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser isn’t exactly shy about her distaste for the Second Amendment.
In 2015, Bowser openly dismissed the idea of self-defense, stating flatly, “I don’t like guns,” and concluding, “I don’t think more guns should be the answer.” Now, in light of a push for gun control emanating from Gov. Ralph Northam and his fellow Democrats in the nearby state of Virginia, the mayor is once again throwing her full weight behind Second Amendment restrictions.
“We know that we really need the Congress to act on a national policy for common sense gun regulations,” Bowser told the media at a recent mayors convention. “I want the Congress to be able to pass a sensible bill that protects us.” She has signaled her support for many of the anti-gun policies coming out of the Democrat-controlled Virginia statehouse.
This is misguided. Nothing being pushed in Virginia or elsewhere would actually stop mass shootings. In fact, it’s not at all clear that the anti-gun restrictions would reduce even the frequency of crime. The data have been analyzed many times. There’s no clear correlation between whether a state has strict anti-gun laws and its homicide rate.
Washington itself provides a perfect example, and one with which Bowser should be familiar. In the time since the Heller decision of 2008 forced the district at least to allow gun ownership in the home, the number of annual murders in Washington has fallen. Even amid a rapidly growing population, the annual homicide totals have never reached the levels of 2008 or earlier. I’m not arguing that this slight liberalization caused the decrease, but the fact that no dramatic increase occurred says everything you need to know about the theory that gun control laws prevent killings.
Washington, where I and many of my Washington Examiner colleagues work and/or live, already severely restricts the ability of law-abiding residents to bear arms in self-defense. After a court ruling forced the city to resume issuing concealed-carry permits in 2017, it did so begrudgingly, but the rules are still extremely restrictive and make it very difficult to carry a gun for self-defense.
This means it’s almost impossible for gay people such as myself, who live in a city with semiregular anti-gay hate crimes and beatings, to defend ourselves. It also makes it hard for my female colleagues, who regularly face sexual harassment on the streets of the city, to exercise their rights as well. In fact, Bowser’s anti-gun sentiments leave them vulnerable to the horrible men who would abuse them. Yet beyond just specific groups, Washington’s harsh anti-gun laws hurt all law-abiding residents in a city with a high crime rate, where criminals are no more likely to obey laws against gun ownership than they are to obey the other laws they break.
Mayor Bowser has it completely backwards. D.C. and the greater metro area need to make it easier, not harder, for people to exercise their most fundamental right to self-defense.
