Just How Are We Supposed To Do That In DC, Pray Tell, Chief Lanier?

Emily Miller, author of Emily Gets Her Gun and one of only 45 people in the District of Columbia with a carry permit, tweeted this yesterday afternoon.

I'll have to wear tactical gear and get a rifle since Chief Lanier expects 45 of us to bring down active shooters before police arrive!

— Emily Miller (@EmilyMiller) November 21, 2015

It was in response to the interview with DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier by 60 Minutes. In the interview which dealt with active shooters, Lanier said that it was unreasonable to expect the police to arrive in time to stop most mass shootings. She told Anderson Cooper:

I always say if you can get out, getting out's your first option, your best option. If you're in a position to try and take the gunman down, to take the gunman out, it's the best option for saving lives before police can get there. And that's-- you know, that's kind of counterintuitive to what cops always tell people, right? We always tell people, "Don't-- you know, don't take action. Call 911. Don't intervene in the robbery"-- you know-- you know-- we've never told people, "Take action." It's a different-- this is a different scenario.

 You can see the full interview below which also includes comments by NYC Police Commissioner William Bratton.

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One Step Down, One To Go For Emily Miller

Emily Miller became the 15th person to be preliminarily approved for a carry permit in the District of Columbia. Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier approved Emily's carry permit subject to her successfully completing an 18 hour approved training course training course within 45 days. Emily says she fully intends to complete the process but won't say when or where she will actually carry.

Emily reported on this yesterday on DC's Fox 5 News. Her permit was approved based upon her two police reports involving threats. Chief Lanier dismissed her other documented threat as being too general in nature.



DC News FOX 5 DC WTTG

Emily was also on Fox and Friends this morning discussing the carry permit.



Congratulations to Emily on this. If I had to guess, Chief Lanier considered not only the documented threats but the uproar that Emily could have generated if she wasn't given a permit. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy Emily got her permit but I have this gut feeling that your average person's application would not have been given the same consideration.

I'm sure the ne'er do wells at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (sic) will want to start another petition to get Emily fired from her job as an investigative reporter at Fox 5. In the meantime, that wailing and gnashing of teeth in DC just might be coming from them.

They Don't Respect The Second Amendment Nor The First

We've known for a long time that Josh Horwitz, Ladd Everitt, and the rest of the ne'er do wells at the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (sic) have no respect for the Second Amendment. Now it appears that they are trying to silence journalist Emily Miller for using her First Amendment rights. They have started a petition on their website with an additional link on Facebook asking Fox-DC WTTG to fire Emily Miller because she spoke at a Virginia Citizens Defense League rally.

Screen Cap from CSGV.org

CSGV goes on to list their set of grievances against Emily including that she testified before the DC City Council, appeared at the VCDL rally, and that she told her story about the roadblocks she encountered getting a handgun in the District in a book. They accuse her of violating the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics.

Josh, Ladd, and the rest of their ilk are pathetic losers who live in a make-believe world believing that government should have the monopoly on violence. They denigrate and castigate women like Emily or paraplegics like Kurt Hofmann who only want to provide for their own self-defense. As I said a couple of years ago, they are totalitarian thugs and need to be called out on it.

For another perspective on their actions, see Dave Workman's Examiner column.

UPDATE: Someone has started a Don't Fire Emily petition on Change.org. You can find it here. I signed and I would hope you would do so as well.

"The Second Amendment Was For When The British Were Coming"

If I were a book publisher, I'd be offering Emily Miller a book contract right now. That's because you know she has another one in the offing with the way she is being treated by the DC Police as she tries to get a DC carry permit.

The headline comes from what a DC police employee said to Ms. Miller regarding the Second Amendment. He said it really doesn't apply to the District because it "was for when the British were coming." You can't make this stuff up.

Katie Pavlich gives her take on Ms. Miller's travails here.


DC News FOX 5 DC WTTG

DC To Appeal Carry Case

Emily Miller of Fox 5 News (yes, that Emily Miller) is reporting that the District of Columbia City Council will vote to appeal their loss in Palmer v. District of Columbia. She spoke with Council Chair Phil Mendelson who said:

"The whole issue of the public carrying of a firearm is very complicated," Mendelson said. "And I believe the executive and the attorney general will continue with the appeal."

Also this week, the city asked the court for six more months to rewrite its gun laws. Right now, the city has until October 22. That's why Mendelson said gun carry will be at the top of the agenda when the city council returns from recess.

"What the court said very clearly was that a complete 100-percent ban on anybody being able to get a license to carry a handgun was unconstitutional. But there's a gray area between 100-percent ban and everybody can carry. And that's what we're working through."

This is not an unexpected turn of events. The local political establishment in DC is profoundly anti-gun and to have let Judge Frederick Scullin's decision go unchallenged would be unthinkable.

Miller also spoke to George Lyon, one of the plaintiffs, about the potential appeal. He was disappointed as you can see in the video below:


DC News FOX 5 DC WTTG


H/T Bitter

Update On Carry In DC (Updated)

Emily Miller had a post a few minutes ago on Facebook regarding enforcement of the now nullified carry prohibitions in the District of Columbia.

Per DC Police Chief Lanier, the only gun arrests allowed now are DC residents with unregistered guns and non-residents who are prohibited under federal laws from possessing firearms. Everyone else is in the clear.

This sounds like good news to those in metro DC.

You know, if you think about it, for the time being, Maryland residents have greater firearm freedoms in the District than they have in the so-called Free State.

UPDATE: Dave Kopel has an excellent post up at the Volokh Conspiracy on this along with some warnings about carry in DC. He suggests caution until an official pronouncement is made.

His long post also delves into the meaning of the win in Palmer. Tom Palmer, by the way, was one of the original plaintiffs in the case that became DC v. Heller when it reached the Supreme Court. He was dropped along the way due to standing issues by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Emily Miller On SAF's Illegal Mayors Initiative

In a follow-up to her Washington Times article on the Second Amendment Foundation's push to point out all of Mayor Bloomberg's illegal mayors, Emily Miller was interviewed by Cam Edwards of NRA News on Monday.

Emily discusses how MAIG jumps on any shooting "like white on rice". She then discusses the background of some of the MAIG members and their criminal past (and present). Of course, this is not new information to anybody who has followed gun blogs for a while. Still, it is good that this info is getting out. Even better is that the NRA through NRA News is acknowledging the roll that the Second Amendment Foundation is playing in publicizing this information.

Quote Of The Day

The quote of the day comes from Emily Miller on her Facebook page regarding Mayor Bloomberg's not-so-shocking endorsement of Barack Obama for reelection.

Of course Bloomberg endorsed Obama. It's his one shot at getting more gun-control laws.

I hope he doesn't get his one shot.

Enough Was Enough

Linoge at Walls of the City has done yeoman's work in compiling the record of plagiarism, theft, copyright violations, and outright lies perpetrated in the name of gun blogging by Robert Farago and his minions at Tthe Truth About Guns. This post was a long time in the making and probably overdue. As Linoge notes, he was assisted in his efforts by a number of other pro-rights bloggers and I'm happy to say I was one of them.

What brought this to a head and resulted in the Linoge's "uber-post" were two events that happened at the Gun Rights Policy Conference. The first was the awarding of a SAF Defender of Liberty award (one of many) to Farago. When the Second Amendment Foundation made the award they were unaware of Farago's duplicitous past of plagiarism, copyright violations, and lies. An uber-post like that of Linoge - and the linking of it by other reputable gun bloggers - will help prevent this sort of error in the future.

The second, and much more serious, event was the treatment of Washington Times senior editor Emily Miller by Farago. Not only did he ambush her in the hallway in a creepy manner but his subsequent posts were beyond the pale. From Emily's comments on the encounter which she posted at Shall Not Be Questioned:

Thank you so much for this post. I felt ambushed by that guy. He was very creepy and jumpy, which made me nervous. I should have trusted my instincts, but instead stayed and answered all his questions politely. I don’t know why he feels the need to repeatedly attack me for being a girl and for not having extensive training in the six months I’ve owned a gun. That’s all true, but I’ve also gotten the gun laws changed in D.C. to make it easier to get a legal gun, so the haters don’t affect my work!

If you do read Linoge's post - and you should - you will see a report of an incident at the 2011 NRA Annual Meeting involving similar rude and condescending behavior by Farago towards attorney Alan Gura. I was there, I witnessed it, and I was furious. 

Alan Gura and Emily Miller have in their different ways done more for gun rights in the last five years than virtually anyone out there. We don't need the National Enquirer of the gun blogosphere treating them like dirt. It is as simple as that. We can quibble about whether it matters if Farago is a plagiarist or not but rude, boorish, and condescending behavior towards good people doing great work should always be called out.

Tweet Of The Day

Emily Miller of the Washington Times has the tweet of the day. Bearing in mind the cost and trouble she went through to finally be able to own a handgun in DC and keep it in her home, this tweet just about says it all.

Like I Said - An Attractive And Effective Spokesperson For Gun Rights

Emily Miller of the Washington Times was on Fox and Friends Weekend this morning to speak about the rise in gun ownership and gun use by women. I think she is correct when she attributes it to the desire for increased self-protection.

I think she did an excellent job in her interview. As I wrote earlier in the week, the unintended consequence of D.C.'s draconian gun laws was the creation of a new spokesperson for gun rights.

The Unintended Consequences Of Putting Up Roadblocks To Emily Getting Her Gun

I doubt the District of Columbia City Council knew what was in store for them when Emily Miller started her path towards gun ownership. She just wanted a handgun for protection and they made it incredibly hard. Little did they realize that the roadblocks that they had erected to prevent gun ownership in the District would create such an attractive and effective spokesperson for gun rights.

If getting a handgun in the District had been as easy as it was in Virgina, Emily may have written one story and that would be that. The unintended consequence of their recalcitrance has been a 30-part series in the Washington Times, television interviews with Fox News and News Channel 8, testimony at a Council hearing on gun policy, and multiple interviews in the gun media ranging from NRA News to Tom Gresham's GunTalk Radio.

Emily's latest interview aired today on Bret Baier's Special Report and is now the featured story on the Fox News site as I write this. The DC Council is reaping what they sowed.

Creating A Gun Rights Activist

Emily Miller just wanted a gun for protection at home. The District of Columbia still wants to delay the process as long as possible and put up as many bureaucratic roadblocks as possible the Heller decision notwithstanding. The end result is that as of today Emily Miller is officially a gun owner as she picked up her Sig P229 pistol and took it home. She is also now a gun rights activist.

Now, this series is far from over. As I've found, the hurdles placed before gun owners do not end here. I need to figure out the laws on getting ammunition and transporting the gun to a state that allows practice shooting.

Most of all, I intend to keep pushing the Council of the District of Columbia to rewrite the its laws to make them fair and constitutional for law-abiding Americans.

Emily has already testified before the DC City Council about her experience in obtaining her gun permit and her Sig P229. I fully expect that she will keep pushing the DC City Council to bring their gun laws in line with the rest of America.

There is an old saying that says politicians shouldn't pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the ton. This is exactly what DC just did as Emily is a senior editor at the Washington Times and I think that they will rue the day that they made it difficult for her to defend herself.

What If Emily Wasn't Smart, Articulate, And Connected

In the interview below with Natasha Barrett of Newschannel 8, Emily Miller explains the events that convinced her to want to buy a gun and then her efforts to actually purchase a gun since she is a D.C. resident. If you have been following her series in the Washington Times, you know it has been a long and arduous process.

It has also been expensive. In addition to the price of her new Sig 229, Emily has had to spend $435 in fees and other expenses to meet the District of Columbia's gun regulations. She is now having to wait 10 days before she can take her new pistol home due to a "cooling off" period.





Emily Miller is an attractive, well-educated (Georgetown), well-spoken young woman with a high profile position as a senior editor with the Washington Times. Before that she was the deputy press secretary for both Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condolezza Rice.  If someone like her with all of her connections has this much trouble exercising her Constitutional right to own a firearm for her own self-defense in her own home, imagine what it is like for everyone else who isn't as bright, articulate, and connected. If you said, damn near impossible, I think you'd be correct.

I hope she mentions that when she testifies before D.C. City Council on Monday, January 30th.

Emily Gets Her Gun Series

Emily Miller is a senior editor at the Washington Times. She also lives within the District of Columbia and wants to have a handgun for self-protection. In a series of articles, Ms. Miller is finding out just how hard it is to obtain a handgun in the District of Columbia. If it is this hard for someone who presumably is well connected, just imagine how hard it is for ordinary people to obtain the tools for self-defense in the District of Columbia.

Beginning of the quest.

Inside DC's Gun Registry Office.

Interview with Charles Sykes - DC's only gun dealer.

In this interview with Cam Edwards of NRA News, Ms. Miller describes her encounter with the Gun Registry Office.



Below is Cam Edwards' interview on Tuesday with Ms. Miller for NRA News in which she describes meeting Mr. Sykes.