Dick Heller's Handgun Permit DENIED in DC TODAY!

(WUSA) -- District residents can start registering their guns today. But at least one very high profile application was already rejected.

Dick Heller is the man who brought the lawsuit against the District's 32-year-old ban on handguns. He was among the first in line Thursday morning to apply for a handgun permit.

But when he tried to register his semi-automatic weapon, he says he was rejected. He says his gun has seven bullet clip. Heller says the City Council legislation allows weapons with fewer than eleven bullets in the clip. A spokesman for the DC Police says the gun was a bottom-loading weapon, and according to their interpretation, all bottom-loading guns are outlawed because they are grouped with machine guns.

Besides obtaining paperwork to buy new handguns, residents also can register firearms they've had illegally under a 180-day amnesty period.

Though residents will be allowed to begin applying for handgun permits, city officials have said the entire process could take weeks or months.

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D.C. refuses to register litigant's semi-automatic handgun

USA TODAY's Kevin Johnson reports that the District of Columbia refused this morning to register a handgun on behalf of the security guard whose legal challenge resulted in last month's landmark Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment.

Dick Heller was one of two applicants who were waiting at police headquarters when the doors opened to prospective gun owners at 7 a.m. ET. Officers wouldn't let him register a semi-automatic handgun because local laws still ban such weapons.

"The city still does not yet understand the decision of the Supreme Court," Heller says on the steps of police headquarters. "We have been denied again," he adds.

Dane von Breichenruchardt, president of the Bill of Rights Foundation, said the city was attempting to make gun ownership as "difficult and restrictive as possible."

"We're going to be back in court. There is no doubt about that," he says.

Under the terms of an emergency law that was passed earlier this week, residents may store handguns in their homes for self-defense purposes. Every gun owner has to pass a written test and vision exam, submit the weapons for ballistic testing and prove they live in the city.

Short of the prior gun ban, the provisions still rank as some of the toughest in the nation.

Assistant Police Chief Peter Newsham said the regulations can be "interpreted" in various ways. "But this isn't a 'gotcha' program. We're trying to accommodate people," he says.

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