When it was previously announced that the District of Columbia Circuit Court would not revisit the ruling by a three-judge panel declaring D.C.’s “good reason” requirement for concealed-carry permits to be unconstitutional, many observers assumed that the next step would be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. But the city government has now announced that it does not plan to pursue this option.
“I continue to believe the District’s ‘good reason’ requirement is a common-sense, and constitutional, gun regulation,” D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine said, in a statement made along with Mayor Muriel Bowser and Police Chief Cathy Lanier. “However, we must reckon with the fact that an adverse decision by the Supreme Court could have wide-ranging negative effects not just on District residents, but on the country as a whole.”
This decision removes the immediate prospect of a Supreme Court ruling strengthening gun rights on the national level, but at the same time it removes an onerous restriction on D.C. residents that left many vulnerable people without a viable means of self-defense. Friends of the Second Amendment will not mourn the passing of the “good reason” clause.
