By Zoe Tillman, From Legal Times

A judge on Friday denied the District of Columbia’s request to reconsider his ruling striking the city’s ban on carrying firearms in public.

U.S. District Senior Judge Frederick Scullin Jr. declared the ban unconstitutional in July. On Friday, he called the city’s arguments for reconsideration “somewhat disingenuous” and questioned whether the lawyers had “thoroughly” read his earlier decision. Scullin, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, is sitting by special designation in Washington.

Scullin’s ruling striking down the ban is set to take effect on Oct. 22. Andrew Saindon of the D.C. attorney general’s office told the judge on Friday that he wasn’t sure yet if the city would pursue an appeal. If the District does appeal, it could ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to put Scullin’s ruling on hold.

While the city decides whether to take the dispute to the D.C. Circuit, Mayor Vincent Gray earlier this month signed emergency legislation setting regulations in place for residents who want to apply for a permit to carry concealed firearms. Police Chief Cathy Lanier told the D.C. Council on Thursday that the department would start accepting applications for permits next week, according to The Washington Post.

City legislators said the new law was designed to comply with Scullin’s findings. Alan Gura of Gura & Possessky, lead counsel for the group that challenged the ban, recently filed court papers arguing the new legislation is too restrictive and still violates the Second Amendment. The city will file its response by Oct. 20. Arguments are scheduled for Nov. 20.

In arguing for reconsideration, the city’s lawyers said Scullin committed “clear error” by failing to consider the city’s justifications for the ban. The right to carry a gun in public wasn’t “at the core of the Second Amendment,” Saindon said, which meant the judge had to weigh whether the city’s laws represented a “reasonable fit” with its interests.

Gura countered that the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller found that the right to “bear arms” meant to “carry” them, and that right wasn’t exclusive to an individual’s home. Even if the judge did have to balance the city’s interests, he said, the District still failed to show that its laws addressed those interests in an “appropriately tailored way.”

Scullin did not ask any questions during Friday’s arguments. He ruled from the bench and said he would issue a written decision soon. In announcing his decision, Scullin said no balancing test of the city’s interests was required when there was a total prohibition that “destroys” the rights of citizens.

The city’s arguments were “at best” a disagreement with how Scullin interpreted the relevant case law, which wasn’t grounds for reconsideration, the judge said.

Scullin took over the case in July 2011 from now-retired U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. He was one of a group of judges from other federal district courts who volunteered to take cases in D.C. to help reduce a backlog of old cases. The gun case, Palmer v. District of Columbia, was not specially assigned to Scullin, according to U.S. District Senior Judge Royce Lamberth, who was the chief judge in 2011.

IMAGE: Cathy Lanier. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/NLJ

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