More handguns — the primary tool of killers in the region — could be trafficked across the District of Columbia’s borders and into neighboring counties if the District’s handgun ban is overturned, county officials told The Examiner Monday.
With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to hear one week from today the District’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling striking down the ban, some area law enforcement officials are worried.
“There’s already enough cross-border challenges,” said Glenn Ivey, the Prince George’s County state’s attorney. “Relaxing gun restrictions would not be helpful.”
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said, “Because there are already so many illegal guns out there,” it would be speculative to put a number on how many handguns could come streaming across the border, but “more guns on the street in D.C. increases the potential for them to come here.”
Others, like Virginia’s attorney general, have come out against the ban, asking the court to strike it down as a violation of the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. Virginia officials tout their own success with getting illegal guns and gun criminals off the street.
In Virginia, handgun laws are already more relaxed — they can be carried in public openly or concealed in homes and businesses — than laws in the commonwealth’s neighbors across the Potomac.
As a result, “I’m not sure changes in D.C. would have any impact here,” said Richard Troddem, Arlington County’s commonwealth’s attorney.
But in Maryland, opponents of the District’s ban on keeping handguns in homes have said keeping handguns within reach protects them against those who illegally carry the weapons. They point to the 2,600 guns District officials recovered off the street last year as evidence of the area’s vibrant black market.
But Ivey said many killings involving handguns are “assassinations” when the victim — often a drug dealer — is attacked from the side, or otherwise surprised, and some involve stray bullets from shootouts. “I don’t know if having [your own] gun in those situations would help,” he said.
There’s also the possibility that if the District’s ban is struck down, some lesser gun-ownership restrictions in Prince George’s could also be scratched, Ivey said, adding he’d like to have tougher sentencing laws for criminals possessing illegal guns.
“Gun restrictions are not a panacea,” Ivey said, “but they have to be a component in our strategy.”
