Heller Victory! Backlash Begins.

Well, the DC Attorney General wasted no time piling on what constitutes "reasonable restrictions" for handgun ownership in the District.

Among the likely regulations: Gun owners would have to be 18 or older and could not have been convicted of a felony or any weapon-related charge or have been in a mental hospital for the past five years. Registrants also will be finger-printed and required to pass a written test to be sure they understand the city's gun laws, Nickles said.

At least initially, he added, residents would be limited to one handgun apiece. The city will set up a hotline for firearm registrations.

A written test sounds dangerously close to a poll tax to me. And here they go with allowing only a single handgun registration for life. Tell me that isn't a fucking infringement on the individual right to keep and bear arms?

These people never, ever stop.

One major question, he said, was whether the court would undo the city's trigger lock requirement that all shotguns in homes remain unloaded with locks on the triggers. If the court overturns that provision, Nickles said, the mayor's office likely would propose new legislation to the D.C. Council that would require that guns remain unloaded in the home expect in the case of self-defense.

And if the Mayor's office does this, he is in violation of the ruling! A requirement to keep a firearm unloaded until needed is exactly the same thing as required it to be kept locked until needed. Mayor Fenty is splitting hairs here. Expect him to define unloaded as no ammunition near the gun, readily accessible for use in a gun and must be held in a separate, locked container. A magazine in a handgun but no round chambered he would define as "loaded".

Does he seriously want to spend another 5 years in court battles over semantics?

The District lost, Fenty! Get over it! For once in your life, do your duty to the Constitution and don't fight District residents' desire to own functional firearms.

Read the comments. A lot of people are absolutely losing their minds over the prospect of an out-of-control murder rate now that law-abiding citizens can legally own handguns. Talk about cognitive dissonance!

I'm still digesting the ruling. It's good and it's bad. We are going to need future cases to determine whether Heller's acceptance at receiving a license as a reasonable outcome in the event of his victory serves as guidance indicating the licensing of 2nd Amendment rights, provided they are not done in an "arbitrary or capricious manner", would be considered Constitutional. This above all scares the crap out of me going forward.

Hopefully, the decision of Heller to accept a license is limited to the outcome of this case only and will not serve as a model of acceptable behavior for the exercise of 2nd Amendment rights.

Still, it is a good day. I'm not going to have to post the essay I had been writing in the event we had lost.

Our freedom has been upgraded from critical and getting off life-support. I'll take that.