text: Tracey Ambeau (now Tracey Hanson) An employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Originally from St. Gabriel, Louisiana, she lives in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of D.C. with her husband, Andrew Hanson, who is from Waterloo, Iowa. They live in a high-crime neighborhood near Union Station in D.C. She grew up around guns and wanted one to defend her home.
  George Lyon A communications lawyer who had previously contacted the National Rifle Association (NRA) about filing a lawsuit to challenge the gun laws in the District of Columbia. Lyon held D.C. licenses for a shotgun and a rifle, but wanted to have a handgun in his home.
  Dick Anthony Heller A licensed special police officer for the District of Columbia. For his job, Heller carried a gun in federal office buildings, but was not allowed to have one in his home. Heller had lived in southeast D.C. near the Kentucky Courts public housing complex since 1970 and had seen the neighborhood "transformed from a child-friendly welfare complex to a drug haven". Heller had also approached the National Rifle Association about a lawsuit to overturn the D.C. gun ban, but the NRA declined.
  Previous federal case law pertaining to the question of an individual's right to bear arms included United States v. Emerson, 270 F.3d 203 (5th Cir. 2001), which supported the right and Silveira v. Lockyer, 312 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2002), which opposed the right. The Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) was interpreted to support both sides of the issue.