Should the D.C. Handgun Ban Have Been Overturned?

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Of course not. Why should the public safety wishes and concerns of the citizens of Washington, DC be deepsixed by an amazingly vague and archaic statement that dates back to the days when personal firearms were limited to single-shot, slow-loading, short range muskets used mainly for hunting?
 
Meanwhile, today’s criminals outfit themselves with assault guns and concealable semi-automatic pistols capable of firing numerous high-velocity bullets in a matter of seconds with no need to reload.  It’s about firepower these days as regards gun crime, the kind of firepower that can and does overwhelm law enforcers, as happened at Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Headquarters in Nov ‘94, when a single shooter intent on revenge wielded a concealed assault pistol to kill two FBI Special Agents, wound a third, kill a DC Police Sergeant and wound a teenage bystander. One man, one small gun.  

The Bergen Record (NJ) reported recently that the Dumont Police Department will spend over $16,000 on Heckler and Koch Universal Machine Pistols, - a semi-automatic weapon with a 30-round magazine and 40-caliber bullets. "Obviously, the bad guys are getting these weapons - we need to keep up", said Detective John Cintrell, one of the department's firearms instructors.

Both of these occurrences show the imbalance in American society between access to overwhelming firepower and public safety. Not something the drafters of the 2nd Amendment could have contemplated. Washington, DC’s handgun ban was simply an attempt to redress this imbalance and deserved to stand.