Emily Gets Her Gun... But Obama Wants To Take Yours

Stephen P. Halbrook offers a review of Emily Miller's book Emily Gets Her Gun... But Obama Wants To Take Yours in today's Washington Times.

After the Supreme Court declared the District’s handgun ban violative of the Second Amendment in 2008 in District of Columbia v. Heller, D.C. officials decided to get revenge. Under prior law, rifles and shotguns could be legally registered. If it now had to register handguns, D.C. would make it as difficult as possible to register any firearm.

I represented Dick Heller, Absolam Jordan and others in bringing a lawsuit against the new onerous restrictions. We challenged the requirement that one must register to exercise a constitutional right. D.C. argued that by making unregistered guns illegal, police could arrest folks even when they didn’t have anything else on them. The U.S. Court of Appeals didn’t see that as a legitimate reason and sent the case back to the trial court.

That decision came down on Oct. 4, 2011. By coincidence, the very next day, a woman named Emily Miller walked into the D.C. police headquarters and asked how she could get a gun permit. She had been the victim of a home invasion and simply wanted to protect herself. She had no training with firearms and, while having extensive experience in political work and the media, she had not been concerned with Second Amendment issues.

Little did she know that she was now face-to-face with a bureaucracy entrusted with the function of implementing one obstacle after another, for a total of 17 steps, to allow a person to register a gun. This really meant 17 steps to dissuade a person from registering a gun.

The result of the trials and tribulations that followed prompted the book “Emily Gets Her Gun... But Obama Wants to Take Yours.” However one feels about gun control, this book is a lively read that combines humor and irony with serious commentary.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/29/book-review-emily-gets-her-gunbut-obama-wants-to-t/