Democrat political tribalism on display

Double-Standards in D.C.

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Meanwhile, evidence has been uncovered that the District of Columbia and Philadelphia police departments provided firearms to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to help her promote her "assault weapon" ban legislation in January, but that D.C. police denied a request from Senators Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) for firearms to be used in their presentations opposing the ban.

The evidence was uncovered by a Freedom of Information Act request filed by tenacious Washington Times reporter Emily Miller, author of the new book, "Emily Gets Her Gun," which details the grueling process she went through to legally take possession of her handgun following the Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller(2008) that struck down the city's 32-year-old handgun ban as a violation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

As Miller reported on Wednesday, however, it didn't take long for D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier to arrange for multiple firearms to be provided to Feinstein, whose legislation would have banned almost every detachable-magazine semi-automatic rifle, and almost every semi-automatic shotgun, as well as other categories of firearms.

The sordid tale appears to have begun when Feinstein's office asked D.C. police to provide an AR-15 and several other semi-automatics for her press conference promoting her new ban. Lanier agreed, with one stipulation:  "Chief Lanier wanted to help Mrs. Feinstein, but she didn't want the media to know," Miller wrote. Feinstein's office was told that the police would "prefer that no mention of the fact that the weapons came from D.C. or were recovered by [Metro Police] in [Feinstein's] official language or speeches."

Feinstein's and Lanier's secret began to see daylight when the Senate Sergeant at Arms told Miller that the firearms Feinstein used in her presentation had come from the D.C. and Philadelphia police departments. Miller's FOIA request thereafter produced a communication from Lanier to Philadelphia police chief Charles Ramsey, lamenting the fact that Miller had found out about Lanier's cooperation with Feinstein. "This is exactly why I didn't want to participate," Lanier said, adding, "We will not participate again." Lanier also separately complained to the lobbyist who helped Feinstein's office obtain the firearms, saying "So much for our agreement [to keep things quiet]. Unfortunately this will be the next tail wagging our dog for weeks."

However, as Miller details, when Senators Cruz and Graham asked to bring two rifles to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Feinstein's gun-ban proposal, they were denied. Cruz was thus limited to a photograph of a rifle, which motivated a Feinstein staffer to write D.C. police, stating, "I was gratified to hear Sens. Cruz and Graham complaining that getting weapons into their hearing today was 'unworkable.'"

Fortunately, Lanier's deck-stacking in favor of Feinstein was not enough for the Senate's most fanatical gun-prohibitionist to prevail. Feinstein's legislation was defeated by a wide margin. We can only hope that, with her bias in this episode having been revealed, Lanier will perform her duties in a more even-handed, less-biased manner when handling requests from members of Congress in the future.