Bartholomew Roberts
Member
Since police officers take a lot of flak on THR when one of their lot does wrong, I think it is only fair to take notice when one of them does right. Especially when one of them is almost single-handedly responsible for the recent victory in Parker v. District of Columbia that is a huge decision in its own right and may well go to the Supreme Court.
First, you need to understand the concept of "standing" as used by the courts. The requirements for standing are as follows:
1. Must show personal injury (actual or threatened) as a result of putatively illegal conduct.
2. Injury can be fairly traced to challenged action and is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision
You must meet both of these requirements or the court will simply refuse to hear your case on thr grounds that you have no standing. This is exactly what happened to a similar case in DC that the NRA started (Seegars). Using a stricter standard for standing than other circuits (a standard set by another gun case Navegear (a maker of the Tec-9 who sued after the 1994 ban)), the D.C. Circuit court determined that none of the plaintiffs in Seegars had standing because none of them had been arrested or even threatened with arrest yet. As a result, they had no personal injury according to the court.
Parker came within a hair of going the same way. The one thing that saved it is that D.C. Special Police Officer Dick Heller had applied for a D.C. firearms permit for his home and been denied by the city. The denial of a license or a permit was held by the D.C. court to give standing to all of the complaints in Parker, so Parker succeeded where Seegars failed.
Now Mr. Heller was a police officer. He already had a firearm. He could have very easily relied on his fellow officers and ignored the law. Instead, in a situation where the city of D.C. was his employer and all kinds of political pressure could be brought to bear on him, he did the right thing and signed on to the Parker lawsuit as a plaintiff, basically suing his employer. I don't know what life is like for a police officer who goes against the wishes of his top bosses in a public and dramatic fashion; but I bet it wasn't fun for Mr. Heller.
Here we had a man who had an easy way out that would give him what he wanted, who instead took the harder road and stood up for all of us. So let's give him credit for his work.
First, you need to understand the concept of "standing" as used by the courts. The requirements for standing are as follows:
1. Must show personal injury (actual or threatened) as a result of putatively illegal conduct.
2. Injury can be fairly traced to challenged action and is likely to be redressed by a favorable decision
You must meet both of these requirements or the court will simply refuse to hear your case on thr grounds that you have no standing. This is exactly what happened to a similar case in DC that the NRA started (Seegars). Using a stricter standard for standing than other circuits (a standard set by another gun case Navegear (a maker of the Tec-9 who sued after the 1994 ban)), the D.C. Circuit court determined that none of the plaintiffs in Seegars had standing because none of them had been arrested or even threatened with arrest yet. As a result, they had no personal injury according to the court.
Parker came within a hair of going the same way. The one thing that saved it is that D.C. Special Police Officer Dick Heller had applied for a D.C. firearms permit for his home and been denied by the city. The denial of a license or a permit was held by the D.C. court to give standing to all of the complaints in Parker, so Parker succeeded where Seegars failed.
Now Mr. Heller was a police officer. He already had a firearm. He could have very easily relied on his fellow officers and ignored the law. Instead, in a situation where the city of D.C. was his employer and all kinds of political pressure could be brought to bear on him, he did the right thing and signed on to the Parker lawsuit as a plaintiff, basically suing his employer. I don't know what life is like for a police officer who goes against the wishes of his top bosses in a public and dramatic fashion; but I bet it wasn't fun for Mr. Heller.
Here we had a man who had an easy way out that would give him what he wanted, who instead took the harder road and stood up for all of us. So let's give him credit for his work.
