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Braving Cold, Chants, Students Flock to Hear Gun Case
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Below, on the sidewalk, the arguments of both sides were echoed by dozens of protesters from groups such as the Second Amendment Sisters and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. They waved signs and engaged in dueling chants on the sidewalk.
"More guns!" yelled a man with a bullhorn.
"Less crime!" responded a group of gun-rights activists.
"More guns!" the man bullhorned. The counter-demonstrators jumped in.
"More death!" they screamed.
Some D.C. residents insisted that the court challenge was another attempt to limit their city's right to govern itself.
"Where do you live? D.C.?" demanded a woman in a "Free DC" cap, glaring at a man carrying a sign that read "Ban the Washington elitists, not our guns."
"No, my parents do," the man replied. "And I love them very much."
Those standing in line to see the court's arguments were also discussing the case, but in calmer tones. Some were activists, but many were students, waiting hours for their three-minute glimpse of the greatest law tutorial in the land.
They were an unusual lot: high school students who had postponed spring-break trips, college kids who got up at dawn, and even that rarest of D.C. creatures -- the teen-aged Scalia groupie.
"He writes fascinating dissents," said 17-year-old Lauren Franz, who rose at her Alexandria home at 4:30 a.m. in hopes of glimpsing 72-year-old Justice Antonin Scalia.
She got her wish -- if only for three minutes.
"This is a big deal," she asserted, leaving the court.
Layla Calderon and Mike Asplen, law students at Catholic University, appeared similarly awed by the historic import of the case. They had shivered in line outside the court for three hours before getting their three-minute visit.
"It was a hot bench," reported Asplen, 22, of Silver Spring, relaying how he saw Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg ask questions. "It was worth every second."
"It was totally worth it," added Calderon, 23, who lives downtown. "Just to be in this place and know this case was so important. It's the Supreme Court. It's the Mecca for law students."
Staff writer David Nakamura contributed to this report.
