Plaintiff in handgun case is suing D.C. for right carry firearms in public

"We were what they perceived as a couple of faggots, which was the term they used, walking through their neighborhood," he said. "And it would have been one of those modestly ironic moments if my colleague might have been murdered in a gay bashing, when he was straight."

The threats were vivid and believable: "We're going to kill you. They'll never find your body."

Palmer told his colleague to run. The thugs chased Palmer, who stopped under a streetlight and pulled out his gun.

"I did not say anything witty or clever," he recalls. "In the movies, they say something very clever. I just said, 'If you come closer, I will kill you.' Very blunt. And they stopped."

He is convinced that if he hadn't had a gun he would be dead. Even though the legal weapon was not fired, "it did the job it was intended to do. It evened up the odds from a gang of young men who thought it would be really fun to beat to death two guys walking down the street."

He offers this as evidence that guns save lives and make society safer.

But to Peter Nickles, the District's attorney general, allowing handguns to be kept in homes in one of the most dangerous cities in the country was bad enough. Permitting people to pack heat while they walk around -- amid presidential motorcades, foreign dignitaries, public protests -- is downright crazy, he says. And it makes already difficult police work even harder.

"This is a unique jurisdiction, and it requires a unique sensitivity to balance safety and the Second Amendment right to, quote, bear arms," he says. "That's because it's the nation's capital. . . . So the idea that an individual should be able to carry arms on the street -- indeed, concealed on the street -- is very scary."

Jonathan E. Lowy, a lawyer with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, says he thinks the case, pending in U.S. District Court, is open and shut.

"To force the general public to be exposed to the risk of loaded guns when they are out with their family in public areas is outrageous and has absolutely nothing to do with the right to defend the home," he says.

To which Gura replies: The idea that the right to bear arms is limited to "walking around your house is silly."

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