I was at the Supreme Court this morning to hear the Rothgery argument, and I checked out the line for Heller while I was there. Or rather, the line checked me out: When I was walking up the Court steps at around 10:50 am, I heard a person yell “Professor Kerr!,” and found two GW Law students, Tyson Horrocks and Ryan Haws, parked out in lawn chairs reading from casebooks while waiting in line. They told me that they arrived at about 11:30 last night, and I think they were the #3 and #4 persons in line. By 10:50am, when I arrived to hear the Rothgery argument, I think they were still the end of the line.
By about 12:20, when the argument in Rothgery was over, I checked the line again. The line had expanded to about 12-15 people, most of them students and about half them law students. Some from GW, some from Georgetown, some from Harvard. As you might expect, most or all were strong Second Amendment supporters. Morale seemed high, at least at 12:30 or so, no doubt helped by the sun that was out and was warming up the plaza outside the Court. Tyson and Ryan were pretty well-prepared, with lots of food with them and lots of reading, too. (Bonus points for Ryan — when I checked in after the argument, he was reading from a certain Computer Crime Law casebook.) Reinforcements were expected tonight in the form of pizza delivered by Mrs. Horrocks & Haws; given that the temperature tonight will get down to about 35 degrees, I’m sure some hot pizza will be much appreciated.
Anyway, I’ll blog about the Rothgery argument shortly; in the meantime, I wanted to get out the important latest scoop on the Heller line.