kludge, I think you misunderstand the concept of standing. Heller was the only plaintiff who attempted to obtain a permit and was denied, so he was the only plaintiff who had standing under the stricter D.C. standard.
In order to show that you have standing, you need to do the following:
1. Must show personal injury (actual or threatened*) as a result of alleged illegal conduct by defendant.
In this case, only Heller had an actual injury because he had applied for the permit to own a handgun and been denied. The others did not attempt to apply for a permit because they knew they would not get it because nobody had ever gotten one. In other circuits, this would probably be enough to establish standing under
Warth v. Seldin; but the D.C. circuit follows precedent from an earlier gun case called
Navegear Inc.. So they have a stricter standard to meet... the injury must be actual or imminent.
2. Your injury can be fairly traced to the challenged action.
In this case, the injury is an inability to legally own a handgun under any circumstances. The challenged action is the D.C. gun ban which blocks such ownership, so this requirement is met. If our plaintiffs had instead challenged the authority of the federal government to tax them and cited an inability to own a handgun as an injury, they would fail this test.
3. The injury is likely to be redressed by a favorable court decision
Here the injury will be redressed by a favorable court decision. However, let's say we sued the government of Sudan for genocide against its citizens... even if we win the suit, not much we can do to affect the government of Sudan so they might find there was no standing (in addition to issues of sovereignty).
In addition to these considerations, the Court has its own "prudential requirements" that it usually follows:
(1) Plaintiff generally must assert his own legal rights or interests, cannot rest claim on rights or interests of third parties
(2) Cannot assert a generalized grievance that is pervasively shared and is most appropriately addressed by the legislature
(3) Cannot be a claim outside the zone of interest protected by the relevant statute or constitutional provision
If you meet all of those requirements, you have standing to bring suit before the Court.
*
Warth v. Seldin is the case that established the modern requirements for standing (actual or threatened injury). However, in 1992, the Court revisited the issue of standing in
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife. In that decision, the majority appears to merely quote the previous decision in
Warth; but instead of using the phrase "actual or threatened", they use the phrase "actual or imminent."
In
Navegear, the D.C. Circuit decided that the change of phrase was not accidental and that it signaled an intent by the Court to tighten the requirements for standing so that injury must be "imminent" and not merely "threatened" if it is not actual. The remainder of the circuits pretty much kept on doing what they had always done ("actual or threatened") and so far the Supreme Court has not clarified that issue.
If anyone else wants to clean up my basic "into to standing" post, please feel free to add your $.02.
This could have been a landmark case restoring rights to regular joes. Now it's going to apply only to the "Only Ones".
Heller was a Special Police Officer for D.C. - this is essentially the same as an armed security officer and applies to private security guards as well, though Heller worked for the city and his participation in the lawsuit probably didn't win him any friends. These police officers only have authority as police officers at the specific facility they are assigned to guard. I disagree strongly with your assessment that this will limit the decision.
I'd also remind everyone that the Activism forum is for ACTING - not complaining, speculating, guessing or generally chewing the fat. gopguy has a plan of action to support CATO as a proxy for Heller. Please either get behind that and help him with his plan or come up with one of your own. Complaining of doom and gloom and doing nothing is not an option for this forum.
