amused wrote:Seth - This is a straight up no tricks question. I'm now in DC and living in a 'transitional' neighborhood where I heard gunfire a few nights ago. My landlady recommends that I leave the compound by a back route when on foot, especially at night. I've contemplated a concealed carry permit when I was in Texas, but I don't know the laws here yet. However, even if I could legally conceal carry, I am concerned about what will happen when I carry and walk to the national mall and into the Smithsonian, for example. What happens then to people who are carrying? I'm not sure, but I think even the Metro transportation system would frown on it.
Sorry, you're completely fucked. DC does NOT issue concealed carry permits nor recognize concealed carry permits from anywhere else and they WILL arrest you if they catch you with a concealed gun, which is much more likely there due to all the Homeland Security infrastructure (cameras, metal detectors and cops everywhere) and anti-gun paranoia. They barely respect the Supreme Court and will only grudgingly allow you to even possess a handgun. If you have one, you're likely in violation of the law because it's not registered and you don't have a DC permit for it.
You can't get into the Smithsonian or any of the other popular tourist attractions (except the outside monuments on the Mall) without going through "antiterrorist" screening.
Last time I was there I stayed in Crystal City, which is in Virginia, where my Colorado permit IS respected, and I carried illegally and deeply undercover (so much so it would have been hard to draw quickly at all) when I went into DC and I avoided any venue with screening.
You can expect remote weapons detectors to come to the Metro any time now.
My advice: don't live work or go into DC until it joins the rest of the country in honoring CCW permits.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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