Dick Heller Sues District of Columbia Over Ban on Home Made Firearms and ‘Ghost Guns.’

Dick Heller, of Heller v. DC fame has filed suit today in US District court in the District of Columbia challenging the city’s ban on “ghost guns” and individuals making their own firearms.

Here’s a key excerpt . . .

9. The District has clearly not learned from its numerous defeats of in the courts, and this case arises from that predicament. The District’s antipathy toward firearms, a Constitutional protected item, extends so far as to flatly prohibit the manufacture of a firearm in the District; not a particularly dangerous and unusual firearm, see, e.g., Heller, 554 U.S. at 571 (discussing that laws forbidding the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons were presumptively valid), but any firearm. See D.C. Code § 7-2504.01(a).

10. Imagine were the District to ban the act of publishing one’s own words. Would this court not see such a law as utterly invalid under any standard of review? Can there be any justification for an outright prohibition on the manufacture of a firearm, a Constitutionally protected item? Indeed, how can there be a right to keep and bear arms, if there’s no right to make an arm in the first place? This case presents that issue for this court’s consideration.

11. The District, knowing full well where the battle lines lay, recently supplemented its ban on making a gun, by prohibiting even the import and possession of parts necessary for the Case 1:21-cv-02376 Document 1 Filed 09/08/21 Page 5 of 41 6 manufacture of a firearm by outlawing what it pejoratively calls “Ghost Guns.” Never missing an opportunity for erroneously defining firearms terminology, the District legislation in question is so poorly thought out and written that the City Council has managed to criminalize the possession of a vast array of popular, common handguns that it regularly allows residents to register, including the very handgun it issues to its police officers. Accordingly, this so-called “Ghost Gun” prohibition is hopelessly flawed and must be found invalid under the Second and Fifth Amendments.

Read the full court filing here.