The Constitution’s Red-Headed Stepchild — The Second Amendment.

Recently, thanks to the invaluable Instapundit, I read an article from Shooting News Weekly (which I have since supplemented with other research and reading), that describes what happened when a 22-year-old off-duty soldier, traveling in a Honda SUV in Washington, DC, was stopped by U.S. Park Police due to an expired license tag. The soldier, Jakob Noonan, is from Oklahoma and was only in DC because he has been mobilized as part of the National Guard safety task force sent to help protect DC and its residents. And his story illustrates all too well the hostility that some of our overseers harbor against those who desire to exercise our Constitutional right to protect ourselves in these somewhat dangerous time

When the police stopped his vehicle, they spotted an empty pistol holster in the SUV and asked Noonan if he had a firearm in the vehicle. The young guardsman confirmed there was a firearm in the vehicle and that it was registered to him in his home state of Oklahoma, which is an open-carry state. But because he did not have a District of Columbia concealed-carry permit, the police decided to arrest and charge him under DC Code § 22-4504 for carrying a firearm without a license.

DC’s penalties for a violation of § 22-4504 are draconian. A conviction carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a $12,500 fine (for first-time offenders), and forfeiture of his firearm to DC. The SUV in which the young guardsman was riding is also subject to seizure and forfeiture to the DC government. And a conviction would automatically trigger federal law, 18 U.S. Code § 922(g)(1), which would make it unlawful for him to possess any firearm in any state, even in Oklahoma which issued his carry permit. Such a penalty would not require a separate court proceeding. It becomes automatic upon a conviction by the DC court. And a subsequent prosecution for violating § 922 carries with it fines of up to $250,000 and a fifteen- year prison sentence.

All of that is quite a load of “justice” for a young National Guardsman, who was busted by the Park Police for honestly answering their question that he was in possession of a handgun, as authorized by his home state of record.

Ironies and contradictions abound:

• These totalitarian-like penalties would be levied because one jurisdiction refuses to give “full faith and credit” to the laws of another state which certified this man as being fit to exercise his Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
• DC authorities recognize the validity of Noonan’s Oklahoma driver’s license, but not his Oklahoma permit to exercise his constitutional right to bear arms.
• Police are expected to exercise good judgment, tempered with common sense. They cannot and do not attempt to arrest every person they see who commits some sort of violation, particularly if it is not endangering the public.
• For example, every day police stop drivers for speeding or other violations and, when they think it is appropriate, exercise their good judgment and discretion to just give a warning instead of writing a ticket, much less arresting and cuffing the violator.
• There are no reported facts suggesting that Noonan was a threat to the public.
• Likewise, there is no publicly available information suggesting that Noonan was acting in a dangerous or aggressive manner at the time of his arrest. Rather, all reports show that he willingly answered the questions leading to his arrest.
• Guardsmen like Noonan are trusted by the government to carry both semiautomatic pistols and M4 rifles in DC to protect themselves and others.
• Noonan and other Guardsmen are in DC as part of the extraordinarily successful to help restore and keep order in the Nation’s capital.

This whole sorry episode should be tossed in the “No good deed goes unpunished” bucket. Or, if you prefer, you could dump it in either the “Lack of common sense” or the “Unfettered totalitarian instincts” buckets.

The Second Amendment has long been the red-headed stepchild of the Constitution. But at least since the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller where the Court overturned DC’s ban on the private possession of handguns, the times, they are a-changin’. So perhaps Congress will recognize that just because the right to keep and bear arms was the subject of the Second Amendment, it does not follow that it is a second-tier Constitutional right.

So here’s some more Bob Dylan:

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

There are other recent examples of police and courts’ hostility toward the Second Amendment, even when its use saves lives. Stay tuned.