According to Dave Hardy, DC will have it’s decision on whether to appeal Parker vs. DC within a week. If I were a betting man, I’d wager they’ll appeal. Reason? When it comes down to it, Fenty and the DC political establishment can’t afford to be seen as backing down. Fenty has to do what he thinks is best for his city and his constituents, and despite any pressure he might be getting from outside gun control groups, political expedience will demand he appeal.
It may not be the smart thing for the gun control movement to do strategically, and surely Fenty has been under a lot of pressure not to move forward, or to make small changes to DC’s law and fight this battle with a different case on better terms. But he also has to consider that he is not the President of the Brady Campaign, he’s Mayor of Washington DC, and he will have do what he thinks is right for his city, no matter how delusional he may actually be about the effectiveness of the ban.
Of course, I could be totally wrong and he won’t appeal. Time will tell.
Add to the fact that there’s no shortage of Democrats who would seize upon what would be perceived as a moment of weakness in his next election, and I can’t see how he wouldn’t do it.
Didn’t the judge who granted the stay order say he would be POed if he didn’t appeal?
Yeah, he did. But I’m pretty sure PO’d is all he can be. I don’t think there’s any penalty if DC decides not to.
There’s no penalty other than the judge really being ready to shit on you next time around. We win either way. He appeals and we get a 2A decision from a SCOTUS likely to rule with us (and even if they don’t, it’ll galvanize gun rights groups and get us going), or they don’t appeal and at long last a 2A ruling kills a gun control bill, a great precedent for us.