The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has just revived a Second Amendment lawsuit challenging the District of Columbia’s ban on carrying concealed handguns aboard the Metro system, holding that a lower court was wrong to throw the case out for lack of standing. The decision, Angelo v. District of Columbia, No. 24-7127 (D.C. Cir. July 7, 2026), reverses and remands the case for further proceedings. This is not a merits victory — the constitutionality of the Metro carry ban has not yet been decided by any court — but it is a significant procedural win, and it puts a live Second Amendment case squarely in the nation’s capital, a forum the Supreme Court has relied on before.
The Ban and the Plaintiffs Who Challenged It
Under D.C. Code § 7-2509.07(a)(6), no one holding a District concealed carry pistol license may carry a pistol in a “public transportation vehicle,” a term that sweeps in Metrorail trains and stations, Metrobus, and MetroAccess. Violators face up to 180 days in jail or civil penalties. Four license holders — Gregory T. Angelo, Tyler Yzaguirre, Robert M. Miller, and Cameron M. Erickson — sued the District, along with Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela A. Smith, Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb, and Metro Transit Police Chief Michael L. Anzallo, arguing that the ban violates their Second and Fifth Amendment rights. Each plaintiff holds a valid D.C. carry license. Each wanted to carry a handgun for self-defense while riding the Metro. Because the law makes that a crime, each was forced onto more expensive alternatives: driving and paying for parking, or hailing a private car.
U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss dismissed the case in August 2024, holding the plaintiffs had not shown a sufficient injury to establish Article III standing. I have long argued that the so-called sensitive-places doctrine is nothing more than a euphemism for a government-mandated gun-free zone, and I believe these plaintiffs are right on the merits. But before any court reaches that question, a plaintiff has to clear the constitutional threshold of standing.
Why Standing Comes Before Everything Else
Article III of the Constitution limits federal courts to actual “cases” and “controversies.” A plaintiff must show, as the D.C. Circuit recited, “an injury in fact that is concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent,” that the injury is fairly traceable to the defendant’s conduct, and that a favorable ruling would likely redress it. Judge Moss found the plaintiffs’ claimed injury too speculative. The D.C. Circuit disagreed, and its language is worth quoting directly:
“The District Court dismissed the case for lack of standing. However, because the pistol owners have a pocketbook injury that is caused by their compliance with an allegedly unconstitutional criminal statute, we reverse and remand the case for additional proceedings.”
The panel pointed to the record showing that plaintiff Robert Miller had been “forced to increase his spending on gasoline, mileage, tolls, and parking expenses” to avoid the Metro system entirely. That is a textbook pocketbook injury: concrete, traceable to the ban, and redressable by a favorable decision. It is a well-established route to standing, and the panel applied it correctly.
The Heller Lesson on Getting Standing Right
This case’s procedural posture should remind every gun owner why standing matters as much as the underlying right. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), began as a suit by six plaintiffs. The D.C. Circuit held in Parker v. District of Columbia, 478 F.3d 370 (D.C. Cir. 2007), that only one of them, Dick Anthony Heller, had standing — because he alone had actually applied to register a handgun and been refused. Had Heller failed to do the procedural work correctly, there may have been no Heller decision at all, and no individual-right holding to build on afterward. The Angelo plaintiffs did that procedural work correctly here, establishing the pocketbook injury the panel needed to let their Second Amendment claim proceed.
Why a D.C. Case Matters for the Sensitive-Places Fight
I have said before, including in my article for the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, that a location is not a legitimate “sensitive place” under the historical tradition the Supreme Court described in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), unless it has limited points of entry, metal detectors or equivalent screening, and armed security standing in for the citizen’s own right of self-defense. The Metro system has none of those features. That merits question now returns to Judge Moss’s courtroom for the first time.
A Second Amendment case litigated in the District of Columbia carries particular weight because it sits in the same media market that every Supreme Court chambers reads daily. Heller itself came out of D.C. for that reason. Winning the standing fight in Angelo does not decide the sensitive-places question, but it keeps a strong vehicle alive in exactly the courthouse most likely to produce the next major Second Amendment precedent.
This article is based on analysis by Professor Mark W. Smith, constitutional attorney and Host of the Four Boxes Diner 2nd Amendment channel. Watch the original video here. This does not constitute legal advice.