Keep Gun Ban on DC Metro, Biden Administration Urges Court

A single rider waits on a train platform at the Archives station as weekday rail ridership across the Metro system is down nearly 90-percent due to the coronavirus pandemic in Washington on March 25, 2020. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Biden administration is urging a federal judge to uphold Washington’s ban on individuals carrying firearms on the city’s crime-ridden local public transit system popularly known as the DC Metro.

The lawsuit is one of many filed nationwide challenging gun laws after the Supreme Court’s landmark 6–3 ruling on June 23 recognizing a constitutional right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. The opinion states that to ban concealed weapons in a specific place, “the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s tradition of firearm regulation.”

The plaintiffs—city residents Gregory T. Angelo, Tyler Yzaguirre, and Cameron M. Erickson, along with Fairfax, Virginia, resident Robert M. Miller—filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on June 30.

Judge Randolph D. Moss, an Obama appointee, is presiding over the case. The plaintiffs are suing the District of Columbia and Metropolitan Police Department Chief Robert J. Contee III. Yzaguirre is president of the nonprofit Second Amendment Institute.

The four men, all holders of concealed pistol carry licenses issued by Contee’s office, are regular riders of the Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority, which runs bus and subway lines in the greater Washington area, including in northern Virginia and Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland.

Michael Drezner, a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, filed a statement of interest with the federal court on Sept. 30 on behalf of the U.S. government, arguing that the local ban is consistent with the Supreme Court decision. He wrote that the court should dismiss the lawsuit that the four local residents filed in hopes of ending Washington’s regulation forbidding guns on the public transit system.

“The United States supports preserving the flexibility of local governments and public transit authorities to take reasonable means to enhance the security of public transit based on local conditions, including by restricting firearms in sensitive places such as public transit systems,” Drezner wrote.

Because the federal workforce is heavily reliant on the Metro and there’s an interconnection between U.S. facilities and the transit system, the system “constitutes a sensitive place, where local transit authorities may lawfully restrict firearms without violating the Second Amendment.”

“Courts have repeatedly recognized that governments have broader authority to regulate and prohibit firearms on their property,” Drezner wrote, before quoting U.S. v. Class, a 2019 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. “As the owner of the [property], the government—like private property owners—has the power to regulate conduct on its property.

“Such prohibitions echo historical regulations demonstrating that the government has greater authority to regulate firearms on its own property ... just as private land owners may restrict guns on their own property.”

The plaintiffs are challenging D.C. Code Section 7-2509.07, which prohibits carrying in so-called sensitive areas. The law forbids licensed holders from carrying a pistol in D.C. government buildings and offices, various tourist attractions, child care facilities, schools, hospitals, penal institutions, places where alcohol is sold or consumed, U.S. Capitol buildings, on private residential property unless authorized by the owner or tenant, and on any “public transportation vehicle, including the Metrorail transit system and its stations.”

These restrictions are “questionable,” according to the legal complaint (pdf).

Metro may have its own police force, but “the overwhelming number of trains and buses lack any police presence,” the petition states. Because the Metro system is lightly policed, “persons who need to travel around the District via the Metro are disarmed for the entirety of their journey.”