Ran across this 2011 article linked to in another piece. It's an interesting, complex read.
Many states have (through NRA assistance) taken advantage of a change in federal law (sponsored by the NRA) to make it much easier to reinstate run rights to convicted felons, if they have had their other civil rights (voting, jury duty, political office holding) similarly reinstated by the state. This reinstatement is apparently is done with little or no review aside from a judge deciding if the person has stayed out of trouble since getting out of jail.
As you can imagine, this has led to tragic results.
On the one hand, I've tended to side with reinstating civil rights to former felons released from prison. Indeed, efforts in some R states to maintain or restore restrictions against ex-felons voting have often had more than a bit sketchy rationale behind them.
On the other hand, putting guns back in the hands of violent(ish) felons doesn't strike me as wise — though not all felony crimes are created equally. While the federal law supposedly excludes the most violent ex-felons from getting their gun rights restored, given the way charges get pled down to secure convictions that's often a misleading categorization.
What strikes me most here is two things: (1) I suspect most people aren't aware of these legal provisions (and how they came about), and (2) there seems to be a real disconnect here in conservative circles (and, thus, in liberal circles) about whether former felons should have all their rights restored, and what the consequences of same are.
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Felons Finding It Easy to Regain Gun Rights
Decades of lobbying have loosened laws, allowing felons to regain gun rights often with little or no review.
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This is a tough question. On the one hand, this seems an obvious thing we need to curtail. On the other hand, if we deem them a functioning member of society enough to restore their other rights (especially jury duty or holding political office), how can we justify withholding gun rights? All those other rights can cause equal amounts of damage or more if misused. And, as you stated, there are lots of problems with using the convicted offense as the criteria for judgment in this matter. We need a better framework.
Yup, yup, and yup.
What may seem obvious is absurd when you take even a casual look at it.
A man commits a crime when he is 25 years old…selling a small amount of drugs for example. He is apprehended, convicted and released when he’s 26. He’s now a felon.
When he’s 60 years old, the owner of a business who has never again broken the law in any way and he cannot defend his home or business for a youthful indiscretion he committed 35 years ago???
I agree, @Morris — the current absurd way that felony convictions are thrown around for non-violent crimes creates all sorts of distortions. It’s not just in jail that they are commingled with violent criminals, but after release their co-equal status leads to absurdities in both directions.
The US legal system has chosen to, oddly, define ‘The People’ in relation to the 2nd amendment as ‘individual citizens’. Therefore the State can not in any circumstances deny an individual the right to carry a gun. Any law that does, no matter what the person’s criminal history, is unconstitutional.
The legal system’s definitions, @LH, are established ultimately by the Supreme Court. They are the ones who have decided (5-4, as I recall) that the Second Amendment refers to an individual right, oddly or not. They have also noted, in the same decision, that the state may regulate gun ownership and possession as needful, short of outright or indiscriminate banning of firearm possession.
It doesn’t specify guns. The word used is “arms.” If it’s unconstitutional to restrict that to exclude assault weapons, then it should be the same for nuclear arms. I think we all agree that there must be limits. The problem is setting a limit that some people won’t flip out over.
The NRA are always going on about what the framers meant. Take them at their word- They only knew muzzle loading smoothbores.
See, this is what happens when you have a bunch of liberals making law from the bench. Damn lefties obviously don’t understand what ‘shall not be infringed’ understands. This is what happens when you put a socialist nazi atheist muslim in the Whitehouse.
Heh. Yes, those lefty liberals Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito … (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller)