Norton Poised to Fight Gun Bill Expected in Senate (4/27/2010)

Norton Poised to Fight Gun Bill Expected in Senate

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today said she is not surprised that Senators John McCain (R-AR) and Jon Tester (D-Mont) are expected to re-introduce gun legislation to overturn the District's gun laws. Norton told residents earlier this month, when a new and more dangerous National Rifle Association (NRA) gun amendment was going to be attached to the House version of the D.C. House Voting Rights Act (DCVRA), that she expected renewed attempts by NRA-backed Members, and she stood poised to fight them, as she has done in the past. "This looks exactly like the bill that was going to be attached to the DCVRA last week. It is this revised, over-the-top language that caused us to pull the DCVRA from the House floor schedule in the interest of protecting public safety, both in our neighborhoods and on federal property here," Norton said. "I warned the city that pulling the voting rights bill would not come close to saving D.C.'s gun laws. If this new NRA amendment had been on the table all along, it would have been impossible to consider taking it, even for a short time while we used strategies we had on the drawing board for retrieving the city's gun laws."

The new NRA gun amendment goes well beyond the old Ensign gun amendment attached to the Senate version of the voting rights bill would have taken down D.C.'s gun laws, which require citizens to register to own and keep guns in their homes and ban assault weapons. "The revised NRA amendment does that and much more by ensuring the proliferation of guns on the streets," Norton said. The District could only regulate, but apparently not prohibit, the carrying of guns, open or concealed in public, under the McCain-Tester bill. The bill would block the city from prohibiting guns in District-controlled buildings and structures, including elementary schools and recreation centers that do not have certain security measures. The city would be prohibited from preventing private tenants of city-controlled buildings from bringing guns into them. Also, the bill would prohibit residential and commercial owners from banning renters from having guns on their property.