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San Francisco challenge: motion to dismiss denied

Order here. It's the [correction made] California Rifle and Pistol Assn/NRA challenge to San Francisco's ordinances, based on McDonald, and the court rejects a motion to dismiss for lack of standing. The ordinances require that guns be trigger-locked or stored in a locked container, ban the sale of ammunition that has no "sporting purpose," and prohibits all discharge of firearms (including discharge in self-defense).

It's especially good in that the court calls into question the continuing vitality of some 9th Circuit rulings on the issue. The 9th Circuit is one which has two entirely different bodies of law on standing. One that usually governs follows a correctly loose concept of standing: you have standing if you have to refrain from conduct because it is forbidden by a statute you argue is unconstitutional. The other body of law applies only to gun cases and a few other classes of cases that the 9th Circuit probably dislikes: you only have standing if the enforcing agency has been kind enough to give you a one-on-one guarantee that you will be prosecuted if you violate the law. Thus the agency can never be sued unless it is foolish enough to give you that, and to guarantee it. The 9th has never bothered to reconcile the two different standards it applies.

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