Gun amendment puts nation’s capital at risk, D.C. attorney general says

The District’s chief lawyer told a congressional subcommittee Friday that a gun amendment now tied to the D.C. voting rights bill would legalize assault weapons in the District and make the nation’s capital more susceptible to a terrorist attack.

Attorney General Peter Nickles said the District is now “in compliance with the Second Amendment ruling of the Supreme Court,” which overturned the city’s 32-year-old handgun ban. But the so-called “Ensign Amendment,” so named for Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, would bring a “dangerous reversal of the assault weapons ban,” Nickles said, and present challenges for law enforcement.