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.
“We do not want the nation’s capital to take on the character of an armed fortress,” Nickles told the subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management, chaired by D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton.
Nickles said he took the place of Police Chief Cathy Lanier, who could not testify because of a family emergency.
The gun amendment has stalled any consideration of the D.C. voting rights bill, which would add two seats to the House of Representatives, one for Democratic-dominated D.C. and the other for Republican-leaning Utah. The National Rifle Association has said it would “score” the vote, meaning Democrats in pro-gun districts face a potentially perilous decision.
The Ensign amendment would essentially wipe out the District’s gun registration and possession statutes.
Voting rights proponents say they are roughly two dozen votes shy of pushing a clean bill through. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland has said he would likely put the bill on the floor before the summer recess.
The issue was complicated recently when Mayor Adrian Fenty said it might be worth accepting the gun amendment in order to get the vote, which remains one of his top legislative priorities.
Nickles noted that attacks on motorcades tend to start with automatic rifle fire, taking out the lead cars so other terrorists can move in with explosives. D.C. residents now have the right to possess a registered handgun in the home for self-defense.
“Anything that changes the current condition we are in is going to complicate our enforcement efforts,” U.S. Capitol Police Asst. Chief Daniel Nichols told the panel.
