Ord v. District of Columbia

Robert Ord is a Virginia law enforcement officer who has been threatened with arrest if he carries his handgun in D.C., but who asserts a right to do so under federal law. He filed a lawsuit in 2008, seeking a ruling on that question, but it was dismissed on the ground that he didn’t have standing to sue. He appealed, and we filed an amicus brief in the D.C. Circuit, together with the Second Amendment Foundation, arguing that the Circuit’s stingy doctrine about “pre-enforcement standing” is inconsistent with decisions of the Supreme Court and other circuits, and should be liberalized. In December 2009 the court of appeals ruled that Mr. Ord did have standing even under the stingy local doctrine. Judge Brown would have gone further, and called upon the full court to rehear the case en banc and overrule the stingy local doctrine, but the court did not take her up on that suggestion.