Washington, DC – Attorney General Karl A. Racine today announced that, in consultation with other District officials, he will ask a federal appeals court to dismiss the District’s appeal of a lower court decision declaring unlawful the District’s previous ban on carrying handguns. Instead, he said, his office will focus on defending challenges to the District’s current handgun laws, passed by the Council of the District of Columbia last fall.

“We need to focus our energies not on litigating old laws, but defending new ones that our leaders enacted in good faith to comply with court rulings while still protecting public safety,” Attorney General Racine said. “The Council enacted a law that sets a process by which individuals may apply for gun licenses, which has superseded the law at issue in Palmer v. District of Columbia. Going forward, our energies are best spent focusing on defending the current law. We are vigorously defending it in the district court, and we are confident that it will be upheld.”