From The CATO Institute:

wning a Gun in Washington May Get Easier

In 2008 the Supreme Court decided District of Columbia v. Heller, finding that the Second Amendment protects the right to possess a firearmfor self-defense within Washington, DC. However, four years later, the city’s firearms registration laws have remained draconian.
 
Wednesday the DC Council’s Committee on the Judiciary issued a report on a new bill, the “Firearms Amendment Act of 2012,” which purports to finally liberalize the city’s firearms laws in accordance with the Heller decision. Cato scholar Roger Pilon writes in a blog post on Cato@Liberty:

It seems clear from the guarded early language (“Bill 19-614 maintains core aspects of the District’s gun control law”) that the council is responding to the threat of further litigation, to say nothing of congressional intervention, while at the same time trying to assuage its local gun-control constituency….As with so much legislation, however, the devil will be in the details and in the administration of any such regulations, assuming the council approves them. 

Pilon is the vice president for legal affairs at the Cato Institute and publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review.

See also Cato’s new study, “Tough Targets: When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens.”