Robert A. Levy doesn’t own a gun, but he is at the heart of a Second Amendment case that the Supreme Court agreed to hear last week.
Levy, a millionaire and lawyer with lots of Washington connections, used his money to finance a challenge to the District of Columbia statute that prohibits the ownership of handguns.
The 31-year-old statute also places restricts on the possession of other firearms, including a requirement that the guns in homes be unloaded.
In putting the suit on its calendar, the court took on a Second Amendment case for the first time since 1939.
It limited its consideration to the question of whether the D.C. statute violates the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes.
Levy argues that the statute is unconstitutional because it goes too far.
“Almost no one argues that Second Amendment rights are absolute,” he wrote in an essay published in October. “Like the First Amendment’s right to free speech, the Second Amendment is subject to reasonable regulation – such as a ban on possession by children or felons, or a requirement that guns be registered. But D.C.’s statute is not a regulation. It is a total prohibition.”
Levy stresses that he does not represent the National Rifle Association.
“I’m not a member of any of those pro-gun groups,” Levy told the Washington Post in March. “I don’t want their money. And most importantly, I don’t want their litigation strategy.”
Levy, a Washington native who now lives in Naples, Fla., said that the effort to overturn the statute is his own project.
He and one of his co-counsels, Clark M. Neily III, are donating their services. A third counsel, Alan Gura, is being paid by Levy.
Before they filed the suit in February 2003, the lawyers recruited six plaintiffs, D.C. residents who wanted to keep guns in their homes for self-defense.
The lawyers looked for a diverse, law-abiding group, Levy told the Post.
“No Loony tunes,” Levy said. “You know, you don’t want the guy who just signed up for the militia. We wanted somebody who was clean.”
The suit was rejected in U.S. District Court, but upheld on appeal by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The appeals court ruled that only one of the six plaintiffs, Dick Anthony Heller, a security officer who lives in D.C., had standing to challenge the law because his application for a gun permit had been denied.
A second-career lawyer, Levy had practical experience with both the District Court and the Court of Appeals in D.C., having clerked for judges in both courts.
Levy came to the law from business.
After receiving his Ph.D. from American University in 1966, he founded CDA Investment Technologies, a company that provides financial data and management to investors.
He sold the company for millions in 1986 and remained on as CEO until 1991 when he entered law school at George Mason University. He graduated first in his class in 1994.
Levy is a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute. He’s on the board of the institute, which is a libertarian research foundation. In addition, he’s on the board of trustees for George Mason.
Levy is also on the board of the Federalist Society, a group whose membership includes Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.
Judge Laurence H. Silberman, another Federalist Society member, wrote the 58-page opinion for the Court of Appeals in the D.C. case.
A conservative, Silberman has close ties to the Supreme Court, having sent at least 20 of his law clerks to the high court.