“Washington D.C. is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm.”  –John F. Kennedy.

Washington Times senior editor Emily Miller once encountered a gang of burglars armed with nothing more than her Blackberry phone, and like any sane person she reckons she’ll need a bit more firepower if that sort of thing ever happens again.  Bucking all of our stereotypes about both East Coast city-dwellers and professional women, Ms. Millier (pictured) wants a handgun for self-protection.

Years after the Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, handguns are still rarer than hen’s teeth in The District.  But Miller isn’t taking DC’s draconian, Orwellian and Kafka-esque gun ban control scheme sitting down.   Instead, she’s taking her Quixotic quest public on her blog and twitter feed as she tries to navigate the corrupt, inbred, and despotic DC bureaucracy and obtain the unobtainable: a District of Columbia handgun permit.  And a handgun.

Lots of folks in her situation would take a much easier route (GTFO of DC, and move to Virginia) but Miller has the guts to stand and fight for her safety and her constitutional rights.  This gumption is all too rare in big-city news desks (cough New York Times cough) and Miller may have just become my favorite big-city newspaper editor ever.

She deserves respect for her willingness to Fight the Good Fight, and for her laudable trigger discipline. I expect she’ll kick ass and take names, or maybe name names and kick ass. Either way, I don’t envy her the process.

Her photographer, however, could use some help: with the all-white drywall backdrop, this photo looks like Farago might have taken it in his office.

If I could offer one bit of advice to our new Dona Quixote, it would be this: make sure your Sancho Panza is a lawyer.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

57 COMMENTS

  2. Wow – the bias – This gumption is all too rare in big-city news desks (cough New York Times cough) and Miller may have just become my favorite big-city newspaper editor ever.
    Yeah those Fox News columnist are full of gumption.

    People have a choice to live in DC. You may prefer Virginia but butt out of telling people where they should live. Just because you don`t like DC, so what.

    • Um… he didn’t say leave DC, he said “[l]ots of folks in her situation would take a much easier route (GTFO of DC, and move to Virginia).” I may have misconstrued Chris’s meaning, but it comes across as though he is saying that OTHERS have left DC. And BTW, Mike, it’s an editorial by Chris, not a news story, he doesn’t have any “journalistic ethics” (as if those existed) that he has to follow.

        • Not a troll. Just someone who disagrees with you on somethings. Is that OK. or do we need group think here?

          Glad you brought up journalistic ethics and the lack of them in this piece and several others. Proves my point.

          • Up until the late-40’s and early 50’s, newspapers were very partisan – hence some of the names (Arizona Republic, somthingorsomthing Democrat)… It is a fairly recent phenomenon that this “unbiased, objective” garbage came about (which never really existed to begin with).

          • Not a troll

            Okay, you’re just interested in promoting journalistic ethics. And you’re a troll.

          • Before you begin to lecture people, work on your spelling, grammar and punctuation. Your trolling will have more weight to it when it seems like your word processing and writing skills are better than those of a 5th grader.

          • Mike, you’re new to this “thinking” thing, I can tell.

            One quick tip for commenting: try reading what you wrote before you hit the post button. “Somethings” might get through that you didn’t really mean if you’re not careful.

          • If you weren’t a troll you would have responded to Todd S’s substantive point. Your aim is as bad as your reading comprehension.

            Either way, it doesn’t matter in the least what your opinion is. The 2nd Amendment is the law of the land. DC does not have the authority to pretend otherwise. People are not forced to give up their Constitutional rights in this country just because they choose to live in one area or another.

            All liberals should agree with at least that much. If they truly are liberals and not just trolls. Abortions are allowed everywhere because the Supreme Court ruled it is a right protected by the Constitution. The right does not play games by making it impossible to get an abortion. They don’t want to fund them and shouldn’t have to but they don’t prevent them either. The same must be made true for gun ownership. You don’t have to buy me one but you have no right to prevent me from owning one either.

    • Ummm – of course there is bias, it is called opinion/editorial for a reason. This is TTAG, and correct me if I am wrong, RF – while we look for the truth wherever it rears its head, we certainly swing pro-gun/anti-gun control by a wide margin. Is this your first visit here?

      The fact that you quickly veered into the “Look at Foxnews…” argument so suggests you might be a bit unstable. Seek help, friend, seek help..

      • Lol, thanks for your concern on my mental health.
        I thought the truth could be relatively objective and not need to gratuitously insult people. As for anti-control. As some have mentioned there is a wide range of controls/regulations that reasonable people can disagree with. Or are you an absolutist that says no regulations or checks?

        As for “veering” off into mentioning Fox News. It was a counterpoint to “cough New York Times cough”. That is also a well worn phrase from the right. I assume you will be consistent and recommend help for Chris Dumm.

        • What you refer to as an insult, I call concern.

          Actually, I think generally speaking, there should be no restrictions to owning arms. The statistics have shown us that More Guns, Less Crime (there might be a book out there by the same name).

          If you are to trust a citizen enough with a certain weapon, however restrictive the laws are (magazines, firing pin blocks, manual safeties, etc…), then why would worry about them having a fully automatic weapon? Seriously – think about it! How does restrictive legislation affect law-abiding citizens and how does it affect criminals? By definition, it does not affect the criminals, but it does affect lawful owners. I know that is too intuitive for you though – not enough hoops to jump through for you to rationalize your thoughts.

        • “…I thought the truth could be relatively objective…”

          So, truth is “relative”?
          Why is your truth more accurate than my truth?
          How about we instead deal in “facts”?

          The facts are, that the political culture engrained in the DC Home Rule is decidedly authoritarian, and anti-2nd Amendment; and has created a cess-pool where thugs are coddled, and law-abiding citizens are at personal risk.

          • Worse than coddled. In DC and Chicago, thugs are elected.

            For what it is worth, I am opposed to the death penalty. The State needs no defense against a prisoner in jail. The Citizen should not be threatened by the State when they, in self defense, shoot and stop, and perhaps kill, a government employee who has overstepped his authority.

    • I stand by my comment about big-city newspapers: it’s not based on bias, but on simple facts. If you can name three major East Coast or Midwest newspapers with pro-gun editorial policies, I’ll name a dozen who wish (and pretend) that the 2nd Amendment didn’t exist.

      And if you disagree that DC is ferociously hostile to gun ownership, I encourage you to defend that thesis as well. If you believe in and desire to exercise your 2nd Amendment rights, there is no more hostile city in America than the District of Columbia. Even Chicago and New York City are more ‘respectful’ (if you can call it that) of the right to keep and bear arms.

      And for what it’s worth, I love DC as a cultural and historical treasure and I’ve visited there literally dozens of times. I’m disappointed that I haven’t been back for almost three years now.

      For several decades, however, DC’s city government has also been a national embarrassment. 1970s-style race and union politics still rule in a city where the very term ‘municipal government’ is a nearly perfect oxymoron. Incompetence, graft and corruption are the rule and not the exception in the city where trash piles uncollected on sidewalks and manhole covers sometimes explode, yet parking tickets somehow keep being written by the millions.. Former whoring and crack-smoking mayor Marion “bitch set me up” Barry is only one example.

      • Thanks for responding. Marion is/was an embarrassment and should have gone much sooner. The current mayor seems clean!

        Also – name me a paper that says the second amendment doesn`t exist. They may say it doesn`t exist in the same way you think it does. It is open to interpretation. It states “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Why is the word militia ignored, especially since it is right at the start of the sentence.

        As for the statement about naming 3 newspapers. True there may not be who have “pro-gun” (however that is defined) editorials. But so what. They can still report accurately. Or are you saying since TTAG has a bias (you words) then it cannot report accurately?

          • Tim,

            I’d like to add that the Founders intended for the Militia to consist of private citizens who could be called up for emergencies. A national army (if it was to exist) was to remain small to ensure the people’s liberty not being taken away by government and to avoid the taxes on the people and debts the European Kings got themselves into with paying for big armies and navies.

            The current existence of a large federal American army does not mean the people should give up their guns. If anything it means the people need to arm more than ever.

              • no mike they are not, the states militia falls under title 18 of the us code and subject to federal call up, in addition the states militia did not become organized until the early 1900’s, the militia, by definition is all able bodied males between 17-44 that can be called out.

                there is so much more but i leave that for you to discover in your own time, good day sir

            • The current military active duty force is very small, only 1.45 million. As a percentage of our population, it’s less than 1/2 of one percent. At the end of WWII, we had 8.2 million men under arms. The last time our active duty force was 1.45 million our population was about 130 million. That was on 7 December, 1941.

        • I don’t ignore the militia part; I think it’s the most important part, as it refers to ordinary citizens rather than official Army (aka, potential iron fist of the government).

          I simply happen to be an organized militia of one.

          The real question is why do gun-grabbers ignore the “shall not be infringed part,” seeing as how it completes the sentence?

        • “Why is the word militia ignored, especially since it is right at the start of the sentence.”

          Not ignored — classified, by people who know English grammar (you forgot your question mark at the end of the question, btw) as a nominative absolute. Those explain the complete sentence that follows. They do not condition or change it.

          The Republic began to die when we stopped diagramming sentences, I tellya.

      • The Washington Times may be a big city paper, but it’s not the city’s big paper. I doubt it would be such a big deal to find alternative big city papers that are pro-gun, though I’m too lazy to prove my point by researching counterexamples.

        • The Times isn’t the biggest paper in DC, but it is a pretty big paper by itself and it is read around DC and the surrounding areas.

  4. She’s doing it right: excellent carry gun, good stance, good grip and trigger discipline, a smart, outspoken advocate and she looks great while she’s doing it. Gotta love it!

  5. Chris Dum, you’re only complaining about the photo because Miller’s arms are raised just high enough to cover what could be important photographic evidence.

  7. Is that a Kahr she’s holding? I ask because of the related ownership of the Washington Times and Kahr Arms.

    • I think you missed the sarcasm of the quote, in that he was complaining that DC is a southern city with NYC manners. Real nice video.

  12. Good post, but I think you meant to say that LEGAL guns are rare as hens teeth in the District. Illegal guns are quite common, judging by the fact that D.C. seems to lead the nation, by far, in gun-related violence. It is only the law-abiding, non-violent citizens who have trouble obtaining a gun in Washington. Criminals can get as many as they want, with little difficulty.

  13. Didn’t someone at the Post already do this? IIRC, the procedure was Kafkaesque, and designed to make you give up.

  14. The easist way to obtain a gun in D.C. is to be a Mexican drug cartel. Holder will back up the U Haul and get you all you want.

    • Oh God!

      She ought to pull up to BATF HQ in a U-Haul truck and yoohoo at them and say, “I’m here for my guns boys, just fill her up!” With a film crew. And if the ATF balked, repeat the demand in Spanish! If that doesn’t work, do the same thing at the J. Edgar Hoover building. and then Homeland Security.

  17. The DC Times is as close as we get to a conservative paper in this area. In the Midwest it would be considered pretty centrist.

  18. SHAMELESS PLUG:

    Many answers to your questions about handgun registration in Washington, D.C., may be found at my blog: DC Handgun Info. Stop by today and check out the long list of resources — including the District police department’s gun registration section, the **only** Federal Firearms Licensee who will assist the general public, ranges around D.C., gun shops, gun organizations, etc. Google “DC handgun info” and explore! Three years-plus of blogging helping to keep D.C. residents safe and legal.

    END SHAMELESS PLUG

  19. I believe the pistol she is holding is a Sig P239, available in 9mm and 40S&W. I recognised the gun because I own one (9mm). One of the world’s best double-action- only semiautomatic pistols.

  20. That Remington 870 Express will get the job done (hell,yeah!) but it should have a shorter barrel. DC might have some funky rules for the minimum barrel length, IIRC.

  21. We should go back to a milita of citizens based on your town, that should be privately supplied and drilled the way it use to be.

  22. Washington Times senior editor Emily Miller once encountered a gang of burglars armed with nothing more than her Blackberry phone?

    I don’t get it. Why would the gang be armed with her Blackberry?

Comments are closed.