Parker Interview
A – Parker Q – Interviewer U – Unidentified Speaker

Q: We’re going to talk about your case and how it relates to the firearms laws here in D.C. I’d like to hear you talk about those laws and how they impact you as an individual.

A: Right. The District of Columbia has some pretty, you know – I like Alan’s term – Draconian laws against me owning any type of firearm. I’m not allowed to have one in my home. I can’t have a handgun in my home. I can have a shotgun or a long, you know, rifle in my home, but I can’t have it assembled such that I might be able to use it. And should I go to use it, I will be prosecuted and also the fact that I would need to go down to the courthouse, get a permit, just to move it from one room to another room in my home, which is absolutely ridiculous. So that impacts me greatly.

I’m a single female living alone in the District. The District has some of the highest crime rates going around; and yet I’m not in any manner allowed to defend myself in my own home.

Q: Can you tell me how you became involved in this?

A: I had a friend who approached me and said that he belonged to some sort of organization and asked me if I might be interested in the fact that I lived in the District, if I might be interested in becoming part of this lawsuit. And I was like, that sounds good. Because at the time I was living on a street on Capitol Hill, it was right on the border of Capitol Hill, and there were some very interesting things going on on my street; where I had actually considered purchasing a gun and realized, “Oh, I had better not do that.”

Q: How far did you get in the process of attempting to purchase a gun before you decided not to?

A: I actually just looked up on the web to find out what the gun laws were in the District and realized that this, you know, it came to a screeching halt. You know it was just a thought, I looked it up on the web and, you know, it ended right there.

Q: Can you tell me about the impact of this gun ban here in D.C.? The supporters say the existence of a gun ban keeps crime down.

A: In the District, the very interesting thing is we have one of the highest gun crime rates in the country, though we have the strongest gun laws in the country. So one would think that, “Okay, D.C. has no guns thus D.C. should have no gun crimes.” No, that is not the case. We are the worst for gun crimes in the District. And what happens is the law abiding citizens do not have guns. I don’t have a gun. You know, Joe Blow who walks about doing his business, going to work, going home, has no gun. Criminals don’t care about the law, that’s why they’re criminals, and they kept their guns. Thus, it makes the people who are law-abiding citizens fall prey to the people who were kind of going to disregard the law in the first place. So as far as it affecting me, it makes me know that I am disarmed and everybody who is going to disregard the law is armed. So it’s sort of a very interesting situation in the city.

Q: I am interested to know more about the process you went through as you researched whether you could have actually purchased a handgun. Can you tell me about the legal walls, the procedural walls you ran up against?

A: Well, first when I did just a random search on, you know, handguns, District of Columbia, on Google or something; something came up and it referred me – something to the District of Columbia’s website. And on that website they started, you know, kind of marching through everything. And the first thing it says is you can only own a firearm or a handgun if you had had it registered prior to 1976. And I was like, 1976? What happened? And then I went back and I found out that in 1976 that was when a law was enacted into the District to alleviate any guns from being in the District. I can’t remember the name of the mayor at that time, I want to say…oh, I’d be making it up, I’d be lying. But that was when the law was enacted at that time. So I was like, “Okay, are there any, you know, special circumstances here you know? Does this mean I can’t have…?”

And then that same website went on to refer to the fact that, okay, if you have a gun that was registered prior to 1976, you are allowed to keep it, that’s fine. But I believe then it went on to say you can have a shotgun and/or a rifle but – then you start watching all the little things that say, but it has to be disassembled or on a trigger lock, and it has to be…you have to still register that particular gun and you can’t… You know, when you read through the fine details you start realizing, okay, this is telling me that I have to have a disassembled shotgun in my house and I have to get a permit just to move it from one bedroom in the house to the other. And by putting this gun together, I am now a felon and the District will prosecute me. I said, “So if I’m sitting in a dark room in my house and put the gun together, I am now a felon.” You know, and I was just like, oh, this is so insane. And then I went and looked through a couple of… I was like. “Okay, is this the same for everybody?”

And I had just moved back to the District from Texas where, obviously gun laws are a lot more liberal there. And I’m like, “Okay, wait a minute. I’m a little confused.” First I was in Texas… I really had no interest or knowledge of any kind of gun laws prior to this, and I was like, I knew kind of what the laws were in Texas, and I had kind of assumed that at least D.C. would allow you to have certain amount of some ability to protect yourself. And when I went and I looked up Texas’ laws and I looked up D.C.’s laws and I’m like, oh my goodness, this is really huge difference between them.

And then I stared looking up more. I was like, okay, D.C.’s this Draconian – who is next in line? I went and did some more research and I found out that New York is pretty, you know, stringent on what they allow too. But between New York and D.C., I really couldn’t find too many places that were that really stringent about what you could do to protect yourself in your own home. I have no need to, you know, carry a gun on my arm, you know, strap it to my hip and walk up and down the street, things like that. I have no need to, you know, carry a gun in my car or any need for that sort of thing. But you can see as you go west of the country there, it gets to be the point like in New Mexico you’re allowed to have a gun in your car on the seat of your car, open to everybody. But you cannot like, put a newspaper over it because then it becomes like a concealed weapon. But it was just interesting once I got to the point where I started looking at D.C.’s laws, going around and seeing other states and what their laws were allowing and what D.C.’s weren’t. And then I came to the realization that D.C. really has a chokehold on its citizens as far as being able to protect themselves, and it’s not obviously doing any good. Because how do we still have such a high rate of gun crime in the city, yet in theory, we’re not allowed to have guns? So something is not working there.

Q: Can you tell me what you and other plaintiffs are hoping to accomplish with this lawsuit?

A: My only goal in this is to give myself and/or other people in the city, if they choose to, to have a handgun in your home – assembled. You know, if the city wants to say I have to be trained for twenty hours every year, or I’ve got to have a trigger lock on it, any other restriction they want to have on it, it’s perfectly fine. I would just like the ability to have that or the option to have that in my home should I need it.

Q: So in your view of what the Second Amendment provides, this seems like one of the most basic things for you?

A: Right, yes.

Q: Can you tell me about some of the other plaintiffs, what their backgrounds are?

A: Oh, I honestly don’t know them in that way, yeah. I know there is another woman. She’s not single.

Q: Do you have any particular thoughts on what the Second Amendment means and how that touches the lives of individual people?

A: To me, the Second Amendment has always meant that I have… I think back to what was going on at the time the Second Amendment was brought up and developed and with the Civil War and everything that was going on. Or not…yeah, the Civil War. And the fact that I feel that when they brought up and developed the Second Amendment, there was a realization that there were a lot of things that were done to people and, you know, guns were taken away from people and, you know, people were just kind of, you know, under this kind of rule that was saying you have no right to protect yourself. You have no right to do this, you have no right to do that. And when the Second Amendment was developed it was giving people the ability to say, “I have the right to protect my home, my family. And if it means that I have to have a firearm to do it then this is what’s going to be allowed.

Q: I think that one of the reasons so many people purchase a handgun is for personal protection at home.

A: Certainly.

Q: What would happen to the individual D.C. citizen –– even if they had a gun that was in their possession prior to the 1976 ban –– if somebody’s breaking into their house? What kind of problems do they run into with moving the gun to a different room?

A: Right, well your best bet, if somebody’s breaking in your house and you do have a gun in your home that was registered prior to 1976, and the gun in registered with the District government; your best bet is to hope that whoever breaks into your home comes in via the room where your gun is. Because the second you take that gun into another room you’ve broken a law. You put that gun – suppose there is a trigger lock on it, you take that trigger lock off; you’ve just broken a law again. If you use the gun to protect yourself, granted the city probably, or may not file charges against you in that regard, but I can almost guarantee you, they will file charges against the fact that you assembled this gun and used it. And Lord forbid should you have then upstairs in your home and then walk downstairs with this assembled gun. I mean, they’ll just probably take you, you know, to court. You’re probably going to see yourself doing some time for defending yourself in your own home against somebody who was intending to do you bodily harm.

Q: So the very fact that you’re putting something into operational condition means…?

A: You’ve broken the law, and they’re going to prosecute you against it. And I realize that because when we went to a town hall meeting, I realized that there was the mayor, the Chief of Police, and Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is like our semi-Representative for the District. And they, in no uncertain terms, said that they prosecute all gun law, all gun crimes. Period. End of sentence. So that just goes to show you that their intent is to prosecute you no matter what the circumstance is. If it’s a gun crime, and that means assembling a gun or moving it to another room in your house, they’re going to prosecute you on it.

Q: What kind of feedback have you gotten from other folks here in the District about getting these laws changed?

A: More often than not I get from people that they did not know that the laws were this stringent. I’ve talked to elderly people who live alone and their family members who may live in Virginia or Maryland have suggested to them that they, you know, “Oh I will purchase you a gun so you don’t…in the event something happens.” You know, they live in a high crime area. And then they realize, whoa, when I tell them this I’m like, “You better not have your family members do that because if they do, you’re going to be in incredible trouble if you actually use that gun, or if you even bring it into your home period, and the police find out about it.” And more often than not people don’t realize that the gun laws are that stringent in the District. And when you start getting into fine details with them they’re like… So a lot of people don’t believe me. And I’m like, “Go to the website, look it up. It’ll tell you right there in front of your face.” And a lot of people don’t realize that D.C. has some of the most stringent gun laws in the country. And then a lot of people are always like, “But we hear about so many shootings and you know, last week so and so was shot. And you know three weeks ago this person died.” And I’m like, “The criminals have the guns, we don’t.” The people who are law-abiding citizens do not. And it’s been kind of, you know, it’s kind of scary to say this to an elderly person who lives alone in a high-crime area and you can see the look of fear come over their face that they have no means to defend themselves. You know, except maybe harsh words and that’s about it. You know, 911 and harsh words. That’s the best they’re going to be able to do

Q: Can you again walk me through how you got involved in the litigation and how you first ran up against the fact that you couldn’t get a gun?

A: I had a friend who approached me about the fact that I lived in the District, and if I wanted to participate in this lawsuit. And I had found out about the gun laws around that same time because I was living in a difficult area at the time. And he asked me if I wanted to be part of this lawsuit and I agreed to go ahead with him on this, and that’s when I met Alan.

Q: What was happening in your neighborhood and why you became interested in purchasing a firearm?

A: Okay. In 2002, I moved into the 200 block of 14th Place NE in Washington D.C., which is one of the…it’s like right on the border of Capitol Hill. Nice neighborhood to be in, but there are some streets in the District that, as you go block-to-block suddenly change. On this particular block, there were probably easily two to three active drug dealers on this street. I have very little tolerance for that kind of thing and especially when it comes to my property, knowing that this kind of thing is going on in my block. Once I got on the block I spoke to some of my neighbors. I said, “You know I found out what was going on, that there were two to three active drug dealers on the block.” And I asked them what they were doing, and they were like, “Well, not much, you know. I just go in my house. I never come outside other than just get in my car.” And I was like, “I live in my home, I am not going to be afraid of the people that are on my block.”

So I just started saying, you know, Okay, next time you come home do me a favor, just call the police. If you see them out there just call the police.” And after a while my neighbors actually got very diligent about this, you know. And we started going and I started encouraging people to go to the neighborhood meetings, you know, to talk to the police, tell them what was going on. When I would find a phone number of a police officer that was really willing to take an interest in this, I would give it out to all the neighbors. And a lot of the officers on the Capitol Hill Police force were more than willing to help us on this, you know. They were like, “Yeah, let’s clear this block out.” Because a lot of times police were saying, you know, “We base our staffing on our previous month’s phone calls. You know if we get 311 or 911 calls to a particular block from last week and we don’t get any on it, we’re not going to send staff to go there.” And I was like… And I explained that to my neighbors and they were like, “Oh, so that’s why the police don’t come over here.” And I said, “So the more calls they get the more they know there’s a problem that they need to, you know, bring their attention to.” So after a while we got the police to really start coming. It got to the point where we didn’t really need to even call them that much because they were patrolling through the block so much.

Well, that was not well received by the drug dealers. One night I found my back window of my car – because I parked in the back of my house – back window of my car was busted out. I’ve had my front window, a rock was thrown through it, and that was busted out. Because after a while it was easy to figure out you know. I moved onto the block, all of a sudden the police are coming. So they put two and two together and said “Oh, it’s her,” you know. And so I got the front window broken out.

And then one night, I was just getting ready to go to bed, I had set the alarm. By the way, I have an alarm and a dog but no gun. And I had set the alarm, I was going to bed. All of a sudden, I heard… I had iron bars on my windows and on my door. All of a sudden, I heard this horrendous sound that I’d never heard before and it was the rattling of those bars. So I was up on the second floor, I opened the window and poked my head out to see what was going on and it was one of the notorious drug dealers. You have to understand and get a really good picture of this man. He is six foot seven and easily weighs about 250 to 275 pounds; a very scary individual. He was now at my front door, literally trying to tear those bars off. And if you’ll excuse my language when I quote him, he said, “Bitch, I live here too. I will kill you.” Okay. And I’m like, oh, this is fun.

So I set off the alarm for the house. ADT immediately – their routine is to call the police and then the police are supposed to come and then ADT will call you to make sure that there truly was an incident. So I set off the alarm and I tell him, you know, “Get away from my door.” I’m up on the second floor feeling pretty safe but he’s constantly, he’s trying the doorknob handle on the house because it’s just bars on the door. You can easily reach and get to the handle of the front door. And I’m like okay, there’s a six, you know, six foot seven man two hundred and some odd pounds at my front door, you know, working on my front door on the bars. He wasn’t able to get through, thank goodness, but I was genuinely fearful for my life that day. There was no doubt in my mind that had he been able to get through there, he was going to do me more than, you know, just – we weren’t going to sit and have tea that’s for sure.

I was absolutely fearful for my life. Then after that, there were still more incidents. And the fact that I had to pull my car around into the back in that dark alley to park; and I mean I was under the neighborhood meeting one time, and there was one of the other drug dealers who stood up and was absolutely shocking. He stood up in front of the, I guess you would call them the PSA Officer, he’s like the sergeant in charge of this police service area, and looked at me and says, “Bitch, I hate you and I can’t wait until one day you’re coming in the back of your house, I’m going to take a baseball bat to your head.” This is what I was getting from the drug dealers on my block, you know.

And then I started investigating. Okay, I’ve got the alarm, I’ve got the dog, I’ve got bars on the house. What more do I need to do, because obviously I’m getting a lot of threats here? That’s when I started looking into the ideal of having a gun, which was a really sad, you know, report on things that I’m even having to go to something that extreme. But the fact is, the police did take a good fifteen, twenty minutes before they showed up.

The only reason this guy left the front of my house is because I said, “Do you hear that noise? That’s the alarm on my house has been set off and the police are on the way.” And a lot of my neighbors at this time were coming out and, you know, front porch lights were coming on and stuff. That’s the only reason he left. It was not because the police came screeching up or anything.

But it’s a sad fact that I now have to look into possibly getting a gun. And that’s when I discovered, “Oh, you better not,” you know. This District is going to be… You’re going to be in just as much trouble as this individual would be if he broke into your house as, you know, I actually probably would be in worse trouble because of the restrictions that they have on me in the District for owning a gun. But so now, I’m in a situation where I cannot protect myself. I’ve got obvious threats coming at me from all ends, you know, front and back of my house, you know. I’m being threatened and I have no means to protect myself. I’ve gone through all the steps that they tell you – get a dog, get an alarm system, I have bars on my windows. But yet I’m still being assaulted in my home and my property is being assaulted also. And I have no means to protect me. And also, when I go to find out what other steps can I go to, to, you know… If I purchase a gun then I find out not only am I getting threats from the drug dealers on the street, I’m going to be threatened by the police also, to be prosecuted if I do go and attempt to get a gun to protect myself. So I was just at my wit’s end at this time.

Q: And then once you began the course of this lawsuit…?

A: Right, then I found out that the District is, you know, labeled me and all the other plaintiffs on the lawsuit as you know, being these rogue people who are out looking to have bazookas and run around the city streets with them and stuff. So then I’m like, okay, this is really good. So now the police think I’m a criminal and I’m being threatened by criminals. I’ve done all the things I’m supposed to do, yet I’m not getting any relief here. I’ve got drug dealers at my front door and I’ve got the police saying, “Hey, better not get that gun or you’re going to go to jail.” So I was definitely between a rock and a hard place in this.