Second Amendment Foundation Applauds Appeals Court Ruling In Ord Case
BELLEVUE, WA – -(AmmoLand.com)- The Second Amendment Foundation is encouraged by this morning’s federal Appeals Court ruling in the case of Ord v.
District of Columbia that finds the plaintiff has standing to pursue legal action against the city, opening legal doors for the pursuit of other gun rights cases including one filed by SAF challenging the restrictive wording of the 1968 Gun Control Act.
Robert Ord is pursuing a legal action against the District for having issued an arrest warrant for him without probable cause because he had been hired to provide armed security at a District of Columbia school facility and he had status as a “qualified law enforcement officer” and “Special Conservator of the Peace,” which exempted him from the District’s ban on carrying firearms without a license.
“There are several significant aspects of this ruling,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. “One judge even argued that ‘litigants should not be required to jump through…hoops to get past the courthouse door.’ That judge also suggested that the Navegar case, which established that plaintiffs seeking to challenge criminal statutes must first demonstrate imminent or actual harm, ought to be re-examined and overruled.
“This ruling,” he continued, “will help our lawsuit against Attorney General Eric Holder on behalf of citizens living abroad who cannot exercise their constitutional right to keep and bear arms when they visit on American soil, because they cannot legally purchase firearms as non-residents, under conditions of the 1968 Gun Control Act. The government has been arguing that we do not have standing to bring this lawsuit. They just lost that argument.”
SAF and the American Civil Liberties Union filed the only amicus curiae brief in this case, supporting Ord, and the court relied on that brief to help form its opinion. That brief was written by attorney Alan Gura, who successfully argued the Heller case, which struck down the Washington, D.C. gun ban, before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008 and is now representing SAF in the Chicago handgun ban challenge, which will be argued before the high court next March.
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nations oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers and an amicus brief and fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.