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Norton Says Schweikert Becomes Latest Republican to Go After D.C. Gun Safety Laws in Wake of Orlando Attack

June 21, 2016

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today said she is sick of Republicans treating the House fiscal year 2017 District of Columbia appropriations bill like fly paper for anti-home-rule amendments, and said that apparently Representative David Schweikert (R-AZ) did not want to be left out. Schweikert filed an amendment late yesterday to eliminate the District’s requirement that a person applying for a carry permit demonstrate a “good reason” for carrying. Norton will testify against four proposed anti-home-rule amendments targeting D.C.’s gun safety and anti-discrimination laws at a Rules Committee hearing today at 5:00 p.m. in H-313 (U.S. Capitol). Norton will also testify in favor of her amendments striking three anti-home-rule riders embedded in the bill—one repealing a referendum overwhelmingly passed in 2013 by D.C. voters that granted the District budget autonomy, and two that block D.C. from spending its local funds on abortion services for low-income women and on taxing and regulating the sale of marijuana.

Norton said Schweikert’s amendment is not only an undemocratic intrusion into D.C.’s local affairs, but its timing is particularly offensive after the recent mass shooting in Orlando. Recent challenges to gun carrying requirements similar to D.C.’s have been upheld by three federal appeals courts. In January, Schweikert introduced a stand-alone bill to force to force D.C. to recognize out-of-state permits to carry concealed guns, regardless of the standards those states use for issuing permits. Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) yesterday filed two amendments to eliminate several D.C. gun safety laws—one to allow people to carry guns, openly or concealed, in the District without a license, and another to eliminate D.C.’s enhanced penalties for carrying a firearm in gun-free zones.

“Representative Schweikert must have forgotten what district he represents, but I intend to keep reminding him the more he tries to dictate the local policies of my district,” Norton said. “It is not a fair fight to go after local policies of a jurisdiction that cannot hold you accountable. We have strong requirements for carrying a gun in public here in the nation’s capital to protect our residents and the high-level federal and foreign officials who frequent our streets and local places. After the horrific mass shooting in Orlando, Members should be coming together to work on responsible national gun safety legislation, not autocratically targeting a jurisdiction’s local laws. Representative Schweikert’s constituents will be informed that he is spending far too much time focusing on local policies here in the District of Columbia, rather than on local priorities in Arizona.”