September 12th, 2007 by Clark Neily

The cert petition filed by the District on September 4 was odd in a number of respects, including the extent to which it focused more on the supposed merits of maintaining D.C.’s gun ban than explaining why, from a broader jurisprudential standpoint, the Supreme Court should accept this particular case.   Equally remarkable was D.C.’s attempt to reinvent the case as merely involving a handgun ban, rather than a ban on all functional firearms, which is the actual law.  Thus, D.C. Code § 7-2507.02 specifically provides that all lawfully owned firearms in the home must be kept unloaded at all times and either disassembled or bound by a trigger lock.  That’s a gun ban, every bit as much as it would be a book ban if the law said you can have a book in your home, but you have to keep it closed at all times.

Despite the fact that the text of the statute contains no exception for self-defense — and despite the fact that D.C. has a track record of prosecuting people who use unregistered pistols for self-defense — the District represented to the Supreme Court that it ”does not . . . construe this provision to prevent the use of a lawful firearm in self-defense.”  Let’s say we take that statement at face value, as well as the one where D.C. told the Supreme Court that D.C. law ”authoriz[es] private possession of shotguns and rifles.”  Surely that means functional shotguns and rifles, right?  Because otherwise, how are citizens supposeed to use their shotgun or rifle in self-defense, as D.C. now claims § 7-2507.02 permits?  Swing their unloaded shotgun or rifle like a baseball bat or throw it at their assailant?  Or maybe victims are supposed to ask their would-be robber/rapist/murderer for a “time out” while they painstakingly reassemble and then load their shotgun or rifle in order to render it an actual, functional firearm.

Assuming D.C. really means what it said to the Supreme Court — namely, that D.C. only limits the ownership of handguns, not shotguns or rifles — and assuming further that D.C. recognizes that only functional firearms can be used for for self-defense, then it stands to reason that D.C. has no further intention of trying to defend D.C. Code § 7-2507.02.   Accordingly, we filed this motion today asking the D.C. Circuit to lift the stay of its mandate and formally enjoin D.C. from enforcing the provisions of § 7-2507.02 requiring lawfully owned firearms in the home to be unloaded and either disassembled or trigger-locked at all times.  We will post D.C.’s response when it arrives.

September 10th, 2007 by Alan Gura

Here’s our Press Release announcing the filing of our conditional cross-petition. The cross-petition is available here.  Here is D.C.’s cert petition and appendix.

Citizens in Gun Challenge Ask Supreme Court to Reinstate Their Case Against the District of Columbia

Washington, D.C.—Five Washington, D.C. residents today filed a petition in the U.S. Supreme Court asking the court to reinstate their legal case against the District’s restrictive gun laws. The five citizens, Shelly Parker, Tom Palmer, Gillian St. Lawrence, Tracey Ambeau, and George Lyon, filed a federal court challenge to the District’s gun ban in 2003 along with D.C. resident Dick Heller. That lawsuit led to a historic court ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that D.C.’s gun ban violates the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

But the appellate court also held that among the six plaintiffs, only Heller had the necessary “standing” to challenge the law. On September 4, 2007, the District filed papers asking the Supreme Court to reverse the lower court on the merits of the gun challenge. The five other plaintiffs besides Heller—Parker, Palmer, St. Lawrence, Ambeau, and Lyon—today filed their own petition asking the Supreme Court reinstate their case against the District and allow them to proceed along with Heller as they did in the lower courts for over four years. The Supreme Court will likely decide in late October whether to accept the appeals.

Today’s cross-appeal raises an extraordinarily important question about when citizens may vindicate their constitutional rights in federal court. Defying decades of Supreme Court precedent, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals held it was not enough that people who wish to keep guns in their home for lawful self-defense risk going to jail under the District’s well-known “zero tolerance” policy if they do so. Instead, the court held that in order to challenge any criminal law in federal court, citizens must first break the law, wait for the authorities to discover their violation, and then receive a personal threat of prosecution. But the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected that view, recognizing the unfairness of forcing citizens to choose between breaking the law and going to prison, on the one hand, or giving up valuable constitutional rights, on the other.

The Parker plaintiffs’ lead counsel Alan Gura explained, “The government isn’t in the habit of sending warning letters to people before it violates their civil rights. Requiring this type of personalized threat as a prerequisite for filing a civil rights lawsuit slams the courthouse door on law-abiding people who just want to exercise their constitutional rights.”

Plaintiff Gillian St. Lawrence said, “I want to keep a gun in my home for self defense. I believe I have that right under the Constitution. But the only way for me to get a court ruling is to get break the law and wait to get caught? That’s not right. I should be able to stand up for my rights without having to risk going to jail.”

The appellate court found that among the six plaintiffs only Heller had standing to challenge D.C.’s gun ban because he—unlike the other plaintiffs—tried unsuccessfully to register a pistol in the District. But that was a futile act because District law prohibits the registration of any pistol after 1976. As a matter of common sense and Supreme Court precedent, the government may not require citizens to jump through meaningless hoops in order to have their civil rights claims heard in court. The court of appeals’ conclusion that Parker, Palmer, St. Lawrence, Ambeau, and Lyon lacked standing to challenge the District’s unconstitutional gun laws because they did not first fill out a meaningless form contradicts that principal and creates a dangerous civil rights precedent in the nation’s capital.

September 6th, 2007 by Alan Gura

Welcome to our blogsite!

We’ve established this website to better inform and communicate with the public about our case, Parker v. District of Columbia, challenging the constitutionality of Washington, D.C.’s various gun bans.

Please feel free to look around. On our “case filings” page, you will find a comprehensive set of all the notable pleadings in the case — from our side, our adversaries, and the amici for both sides — as well as all the relevant court orders and opinions. Our “Frequently Asked Questions” page should answer most of the basic questions we get about our case. We’re collecting a set of useful articles and other documents under “Articles and Testimony” page. And of course this blog will also contain news updates, insights, and other commentary about this historic case. Our website will always be a work in progress, and we may add other features as events unfold.

Thanks again for stopping by. We hope you find this website useful.

– The Parker Team