[Rick Lee]

Hugh, the places in DC where you could get a gun cash & carry on the street are not the places any law-abiding citizen would be caught dead. Imagine the worst neighborhood in LA and that's what a lot of DC is like. Some of those hoods are so bad that the cops won't even respond to 911 calls until daylight. You'd be better off getting a driver's license in VA with a friend's address on it and then buying a gun in a store there. VA has no registration and no waiting period. Besides, you don't often see quality guns in the hood. Most are junk guns and many have the serial # removed, which will get you a federal rap. For self-defense, you want the best you can afford and to know it will go BANG every time.

For a long time DC pretty much left gun folks alone in the city. Sure, it was illegal to possess. But if you used it to defend your home, they might take the gun, but you didn't get prosecuted. I've even heard of cases where the Secret Service saw someone carrying and left them alone, as long as they weren't in a sensitive area. When the Capitol Police got on me for parking illegally with a ton of ammo, powder and primers I had left on my back seat, which they could see from the sidewalk, they just gave me a parking ticket and didn't even ask to search the car when I went to talk with them. Of course, I was wearing a suit and looked as law abiding as the day is long.