Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-14-07071/USCOURTS-caDC-14-07071-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

---

The attached material is cited in Heller v. District of 

Columbia, No. 14-7071, slip op. at 16, dissent (D.C. Cir. 

September 18, 2015); (citing , Douglas Weil, A Law that 

Gunrights Advocates Should be Fighting to Keep, Wash. 

Post, 2/17/12, available on 2/16/16 at 

http://www.washingtonpost.com /opinions/a-law-that-gun-rights-advocates-shouldbe-fightingtokeep/2012/02/16/gIQAvcASKR_story.html)

Archived by the Circuit Library on 2/16/16.

USCA Case #14-7071 Document #1599610 Filed: 09/18/2015 Page 1 of 3
A law that gun-rights advocates should be fighting to keep - The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/...inions/a-law-that-gun-rights-advocates-should-be-fighting-to-keep/2012/02/16/gIQAvcASKR_story.html[02/16/2016 5:34:06 PM]

Opinions

A law that gun-rights advocates should be

fighting to keep

  12  Sae  My 

By Douglas Weil February 17, 2012

In July 1993, a Virginia law took effect limiting the number of handguns an individual could

purchase to one gun every 30 days. Not to one gun a year, or one gun a lifetime — but one gun a

month. The impact of this law on interstate gun trafficking was immediate, it was significant

and it is impossible to refute. Prior to the law, Virginia gun dealers were the most important

source of crime guns illegally trafficked along Interstate 95, also known as the “iron pipeline”

from the Southeast to the states in the Northeast corridor.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) routinely traces the origin of

crime guns from the location where they have been recovered by the police back to the firearms

dealers who first sold the guns. In the 5 / -year period beginning in September 1989, 14,606

guns that were sold by dealers in one of the eight southeastern states were later recovered by the

police and traced to their origin by ATF. An analysis of the trace data that I conducted with my

colleague Rebecca C. Knox revealed that the odds that any of these guns would be traced back to

a Virginia gun dealer fell by a third after the one-gun-a-month law took effect.

1 2

 Sections USCA Case #14-707  Document #159961  Filed: 09/18/201  Page 2 of
A law that gun-rights advocates should be fighting to keep - The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/...inions/a-law-that-gun-rights-advocates-should-be-fighting-to-keep/2012/02/16/gIQAvcASKR_story.html[02/16/2016 5:34:06 PM]

Our analysis, published in 1996 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that

the impact of the law on gun trafficking was even more dramatic along the iron pipeline.

Specifically, the odds that a crime gun used in the Northeast would be traced to a gun dealer in

Virginia fell by two-thirds.

Despite this, the Virginia General Assembly has voted to repeal the one-gun-a-month

restriction, and Gov. Robert F. McDonnell has indicated that he will sign the legislation. Their

logic appears to be that since exemptions to the law have been created (e.g., for law-enforcement

officers and holders of concealed-carry permits), the state should exempt everyone. But there is

simply no public health or public safety rationale for repealing the law.

The gun lobby is fond of saying that gun laws only burden law-abiding citizens — that criminals

will always be able to get guns. The analysis of ATF’s gun-trace data proves that proposition is

not true. The Virginia law applies to retail gun sales, but the impact, both large and immediate,

was on illegal gun trafficking. The law places virtually no burden on individuals who are legally

entitled to purchase a handgun. It isn’t a prohibition against the purchase or possession of

firearms. It doesn’t limit the number of guns an individual can own. It doesn’t increase the time

needed to complete a background check. The law burdens gun traffickers and the straw

purchasers they hire to supply them with guns, and it makes it more difficult for the rare dirty

gun dealer who is willing to look the other way when a single individual walks in to his store

asking to buy five or 10 or even 20 or more inexpensive handguns to be sold on the street.

USCA Case #14-7071 Document #1599610 Filed: 09/18/2015 Page 3 of 3