


In the fight to restore order in the nation's capital, the Trump administration is now engaging another, proven founding principle of the republic: The Second Amendment. Specifically, the District of Columbia's concealed-carry permitting process time is being slashed, from months to days.
This is an unmitigated good thing, and actually is a fundamental liberty, not granted but protected by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The concealed carry permit process also has been streamlined, Fox Digital learned. What used to take "several months" to obtain a concealed carry permit, has been cut down to 4.6 days, according to data compiled during the month of May by the task force, which the White House shared with Fox News Digital.
Appointments for firearm registration and conceal carry licenses also have been combined into one category to cut back on confusion over which option to choose when beginning the gun process. While the District will soon use third-party finger printers, in addition to Metropolitan Police Department machines, after the D.C. City Council voted to broaden where people can get fingerprinted July 28.
For a Second Amendment purist (like me), it rankles that any jurisdiction, anywhere, is allowed to require a government permit to exercise a constitutional right. (Alaska doesn't.) But this is the world we live in; politics is the art of the possible, and in the District of Columbia, this may well be the best we can hope for - today. And we should note that before the Supreme Court's decision in the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen case, we might not even have had that.
The Bruen decision changed a lot, but we've got a long way yet to go, especially in the nation's capital.
Washington, D.C., has some of the most strict gun laws in the nation, including requiring permitted concealed carry holders to re-apply for their license every two years, a ban on most semi-automatic rifles, and ammunition restrictions that ban an individual from possessing ammo for a firearm not registered with the Metropolitan Police Department. The District also has an extensive list of gun-free zones, including public memorials on the National Mall, public transportation, government buildings, schools and colleges, hospitals and medical offices, stadiums and anywhere alcohol is sold.
This is a problem, not just in the District of Columbia, but in all of our major metropolitan areas.
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It's as sure a thing as the sunrise; the cities with the strictest gun control laws have the highest rates of crimes committed with firearms. And, no, there is no such thing as "gun crime," and I will not use the term except to refute it; that term implies that the gun somehow committed a crime or at least was a contributing cause. Horse squeeze. A gun is a tool, nothing more, and the tool used in any action, in any crime, is never a cause.
It would be great to see the law-abiding citizenry across every square inch of these United States suffering no restrictions on their Second Amendment rights. The wording of the amendment seems very clear: "...shall not be infringed." But infringed it is, to the cost of the citizenry and to the advantage of goblins, who are guaranteed defenseless victims.
The crime problems in our cities will never be completely resolved until the fear in the hearts of the innocent is transferred to the goblins who would prey on them. The criminal element should live in terror, every moment of their existence, that the next time they try a carjacking or a robbery, an armed citizen will be there to deny them.
The District of Columbia, for now, has moved a step in that direction. It's only a step - but it's a step. Thanks, President Trump.
Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.
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