For Americans who believe in the Second Amendment especially for District of Columbia residents the day of reckoning before the United States Supreme Court has been 30 years in the making. The story of the plight of disarmed D.C. residents really begins on the night of March 16, 1975, when three women, sharing a townhouse, were awakened by the sound of their door being kicked in. This was no ordinary burglary or home invasion; this was a horrific, unspeakable crime. Two of the three roommates had rooms upstairs. They were awakened by the screaming of their friend downstairs who was being beaten, raped and sodomized by two men. Carolyn Warren called the police and was told help was on the way. She and her other upstairs roommate watched in horror as a police car passed their home, merely slowing down. They called the police a second time. This time, there was no response at all. After an hour, hearing no sounds from the floor below, they called down to their friend, but merely alerted the rapists to their presence. After that, all three women were forced to endure 14 unspeakable hours of sexual torture. The women sued the District of Columbia and after two years, during which time D.C. instituted its gun ban, they lost.

The case is Warren v. District of Columbia. The D.C. Superior Court ruled, " ... a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen." (Emphasis added.) Thus the rule that the District had no duty to protect its individual citizens was in place when, in July 1976, the D.C. City Council enacted its draconian gun ban. If the lower court ruling in Ms. Warren's case was devastating to her and every law-abiding resident of the District of Columbia, the ruling of the D.C. Court of Appeals, 444 a.2d 1(d.c App. 1981) was worse: "The duty to provide public services is owed to the public at large, and, absent a special relationship between the police and an individual, no specific legal duty exists."

It begs the basic question: If the police have no duty to protect individuals in their homes, who does? The individual does. You and I do. Average citizens.