By Yolanda Woodlee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 31, 2007

Standing before about three dozen students and young adults, Ron Moten, the co-founder of the advocacy group Peaceoholics, painted a grim picture yesterday to illustrate why he hopes to save the District ban on handguns.

Moten, speaking from the steps of the John A. Wilson Building, gestured to the young people, many of whom have been affected by gun violence. Any of them could be a victim in the future, he said.

"People whose brains get splattered on the streets look like these people up here," Moten said. "We must change the mentality of the people. Guns are not the answer."

Peaceoholics, along with Reaching Out to Others Together and other civic groups, sponsored the event to draw attention to a recent U.S. Court of Appeals ruling easing the ban.

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) attended, along with Council members Marion Barry (D-Ward 8), Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) and Kwame R. Brown (D-Ward 7) and Paul Strauss, D.C. shadow senator.

"We know the answer to the amount of violence in the District of Columbia is not to have more guns on the streets," Fenty said. "That's why we decry the decision of the judges."

A federal appeals court overturned the District's tough gun-control law earlier this month, citing the Second Amendment, which grants the right to possess firearms. The court ruling was the result of a challenge by six city residents.

District law bars possessing handguns in the District unless they were registered before 1976. The ruling did not change the provision that bars private citizens from carrying guns outside their homes.

The event at the District building featured testimony by crime victims and others whose friends and families have been affected by gun violence.

Anthony Graves, 18, of Columbia Heights said two of his friends died from gunfire and another is jailed for possessing a gun.

"If people are allowed to buy guns . . . there will be more killings, robberies and deaths of people who look like me," said Graves, who obtained a general equivalency diploma at Oak Hill, a juvenile facility. "And there will be more mothers crying [who look] just like mine."

Carla Spence, a junior at Anacostia Senior High School, said that "our youth are being carried out in body bags. This has to stop."

Fenty reminded those attending that handguns are still illegal in the District while the city appeals the ruling. All the elected officials promoted the voting rights march on April 16, which is Emancipation Day in the District, as another place to display their protest.

"Guns must go! Guns must go!" chanted Barry as he urged the crowd of about 60 spectators to join in. Calling the ruling "a bad decision," Barry said he has attended funerals for about 50 victims younger than 18. "We can't be passive about this killing. . . . Guns cause violence."

Mendelson criticized the court's decision, calling it "absurd" and "crazy" that the courts would rule against the city's 30-year-old ban.

"What the courts did was crazy," Mendelson said. "Everyone agrees we need to get guns off the streets. Where the court is going is not making us safer."

The court's decision comes during the District's fight for legislation granting full voting rights in the House. Opponents of that bill argue it is unconstitutional on grounds that only states can elect representatives to the House, and the District is not a state.

Local leaders were angered when congressional Republicans derailed the D.C. vote campaign by linking it to a change in the District gun-control ban.

"You can't bring a gun into Congress," Strauss said. "You can't bring a gun into the White House, but they're trying to put guns in our house. We're not going to let them."