Chris W. Cox [Executive Director, National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action]: "While a recent District proposal – passed only under the threat of congressional action – does make a few positive changes to its gun laws, it is still important for Congress to take strong action to restore the Second Amendment rights of District residents.

The D.C. Council's second "emergency" bill makes clear that it still intends to impose new limits on D.C. residents. For example, while the new D.C. bill would allow possession of semi-automatic firearms, it also bans standard-capacity magazines commonly used by law-abiding citizens for self-protection throughout the country.

This bill states as a "policy of the District of Columbia" that firearms should be stored unloaded and either disassembled or locked. While some media reports have spun this as merely an advisory provision, under the Council's bill, a gun owner can be found guilty of "criminally negligent storage of a firearm" if another individual gains access to a gun and injures someone with it.

By contrast, the Second Amendment Enforcement Act, which passed the U.S. House last week with 266 bipartisan votes, would make important changes to D.C. law in areas that the Council's bill fails to address. Not only does it implement the Heller decision by allowing law-abiding D.C. residents to own the most common types of handguns, but it would reform D.C.'s firearm registration requirements, which provide a pretext for many of D.C.'s other restrictions on residents' Second Amendment rights. Registration is of dubious crime-prevention benefit, as demonstrated by D.C.'s high crime levels.

The Act also authorizes D.C. residents to purchase a handgun from a licensed dealer in Maryland or Virginia, after passing a federally mandated background check. This change is necessary because there is only one federally licensed dealer who will perform handgun transfers in the District, and proposed D.C. zoning regulations would make it even harder for other dealers to start up.

In short, because the D.C. Council continues to fail to implement the Supreme Court's Heller decision, congressional action is necessary to restore the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding D.C. residents."