imported post
swift wrote:
I read this the other day thought you might like to read it.
Citizens in Gun Challenge Ask Supreme Court to Reinstate Their Case Against the District of Columbia
09.10.07
WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- 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.