Gee, its sort of like those parts of the country where abortions are legal, but nobody doctors are afraid to perform them.

Aside from the right to own a gun being right there in the Constitution and the right to an abortion having been made up of whole cloth in 1973, the former is a positive right and the latter a negative one. Further, an adult can travel to another state to obtain an abortion. In the current regulatory environment, you can't legally do that with guns.

Certainly, though, a locality that effectively banned peacable assembly through zoning rules would find themselves sanctioned in court.

Isn't that exactly what has happened with the popularity of so called "free speech zones" in recent years? Local areas ban the right of assembly and free speech in areas where it is inconvenient and then set aside separate (easily ignored) areas to allow the right within.

The only difference here is that gun ownership involves an object rather than an action.

Clearly, the District needs a gun shop to call its own.

Now, getting a license to open a gun shop might provide its own difficulties, but if a gun-control activist can get a license--and Arena Stage--it might be done.

Maybe, if DC were smart, it'd license a shop in a very high-rent district so that the overhead would add significantly to the price of the gun. That'd keep it out of some hands, perhaps, unless they were still cheaper on the street.

Can DC get away with simply declaring its entire area a “Second Amendment Free Zone”?

Until the whole issue gets dragged up before the court again, I suppose they can.