“Baghdad, D.C.”?
We’ve often reported on the quandary the leaders of our nation’s capital face. They govern a city that has had an outright ban on handguns for more than three decades, yet they’re constantly looking for panaceas for the District’s high rate of gun crime. How ironic it is, that a city that should be an anti-gunner’s utopia is constantly plagued with high levels of gun violence. Burying their heads in the sand, these leaders continue to try to avoid the unavoidable: Criminals don’t obey the law and have ignored the gun ban since its inception.
Enter yet another doomed-to-fail attempt at a remedy—the so-called “Neighborhood Safety Zone” (NSZ).
Announced this week by D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), the NSZ program involves setting up military-style checkpoints in the violence-plagued Trinidad section of the city. At each of these checkpoints, every vehicle will be stopped. The occupants of the vehicle will be ordered to identify themselves, and to prove a “legitimate” reason for being in the area. Police will search cars if they suspect there are guns or drugs inside, and will arrest people who do not cooperate. Apparently, bicycle and pedestrian traffic will not be stopped. Perhaps the assumption is that only those traveling in cars will be illegally armed.
The plan faces so many civil liberty concerns it’s mind-boggling. Not surprisingly, many groups have come out against it.