I am writing a letter to our reps on capital hill and wanted to get your input on this subject.  For me at least, I believe that anyone with the mental capacity to use a firearm responsibly should have a right to own one.  Very vague, but it basically reads that anyone that can understand there actions and use firearms in a responsible way that dose not endanger the lives/health of our citizens should be able to own what ever firearm they want.  But how about past felons, people convicted of domestic violence and other gray area communities that our legislators like to point out?  There are career criminals out there that should not have weapons, but they always seem to get them by ‘other’ means.

I know I'll wind up getting flamed, but I do not think felons and people convicted of domestic violence should own a firearm.

If you beat your spouse you do not deserve the right to own a gun. You have proven you are not capable of making rational decisions. Same with felons. We all have free will, and if you decide to piss away your freedoms, too bad for you.

Nomex on! [flame]

Av.

Edited fer speeling.

Avalon1: I must disagree not because I think wife beaters or felons are great people, but because I don't trust our politicians not to keep creeping definitions.

If your wife leaves you and claims you abused her, she'll get a restraining order - it happens all the time.  POOF - you've lost your right to have firearms until the restraining order is lifted, although you may have done NOTHING whatsoever dangerous or uncivil.  How long before that becomes permanent?

Spank your kid?  Some liberal will decide you're prone to violence - no more guns.

How long before repeat speeding offenders get reclassified as felons?  Maybe just a teensy weensy one where they do no jail time, and haven't really done anything wrong, but their guns are wrong.

I think the government should keep people they don't trust with guns behind bars, and any man, woman or child walking free should have the right to keep and bear arms.

If someone can't be trusted with a firearm, they should still be behind bars or in a mental health facility.

A felon is someone who has been convicted of a crime that is a felony in their state. It has doesn't have to be a federal crime, however I believe that ALL federal crimes are felonies.

In PA it I think if you do more then one year in prison then it's generally a felony crime.

Also in PA, you do not have to be convicted of a felony to lose your right to own guns. If you are convicted of any offense where the judge could give you 2 years in prison then you are disqualified from owning guns perminently. SO in other words you could be convicted of say theft by deception (example tring to pass bad checks) which I believe is a misdemeanor punishable by upto 2 years in prison. However the judge gives you 30 days since you are a first time offender - boom no more guns. Now lets say its now 5,7 or even 10 years later and this person has had no trouble with the law - he still can't buy a gun in PA. I think that is fucked up.

Once you are convicted of a felony you can not EVER legally own firearms again. So Snowblade, yes you are correct that someone convicted of felony fraud or computer crimes can never again legall own guns.

Nobody should have firearms...

...except me of course.

Another PA example of someone who is disqualified from ever owning guns: If you are convicted of DUI (which is still a misdemeanor in PA) 3 times within a 5 year period.

I think this one is funny. I can just imagine a real asshole drunk with 2 DUI's worrying about finishing the 5 year period before he gets his 3rd DUI becuase he don't want to give up his guns.

You have to be a real idiot to get caught for DUI in the city. The only people who get caught are those that run into somenthing.

Shadowblade: A felony is any crime where the punishment is one year or more in a state penitentiary.  A misdemeanor/infraction is less than a year in county jail.  It’s a pretty cut and dry definition.

I wanted to use a different wording than ‘mental capacity’ but I could not think of one.  There are people out there that just don’t make good designs, and these are the people we should be wary of when giving them the right to own weapons.  It might not even be their fault either that they are that way.  However because they are so unstable they could injure them selves or people around them when they have their episodes, that’s why I feel that can’t handle the responsibility of owning and using a firearm should not have them.

Not every convicted felon is a danger to society either.  Its’ a felony to writing a bad check, depending on how you handle the situation; parking tickets could grow into a felony.  And then there are people that are too pore to high ‘decent’ representation in court and get a public defendant that advises them to do a plea-bargain for a lesser sentence and probation.  Same thing could apply to other crimes as well.  So rather than just say no to passed felons, they should do some background investigation to see if there is a risk in giving this person the right to bare arms.

Should the US armed forces and police departments be the only ones to own weapons?  A simple answer to that, no.  I say that because we should never put the government on a higher level than a citizen, because the government makes mistakes like the rest of us – and dose not deserve immunity.  Waco Texas could have been resolved peacefully, but the course of actions that the BATF chose caused the deaths of many uniformed BATF agents and the deaths of every person in that complex.  The government that day clearly demonstrated that they did not have the ‘mental capacity’ to keep and bare arms, but they still have them.

PS: Everyone should take an “Introduction to Administration of Justice” class at their local city college, it’s one of the more useful classes you could ever take at a college [:)]

When I was younger I did something that would constitute a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. Fortunately, it was never reported to the Police. But, even though this was before the Latenburg amendment, I could still have lost my RKBA for it.

I have since kept my nose clean. But, that doesn't matter under the Latenburg Amendment. In fact, the ban on Ex Post Facto laws doesn't even matter.

Everybody can change. But, under the law, a crime that would constitute a felony even if commited as a juvenille might cost a person the right to own a gun when they are 90.

Take the example of a recent case in MD. A guy shoved another person 20 years ago. He plead guilty and got probation. 20 years later, the MSP payed him a visit and seized all the guns he owned. Why, because his rights were taken away and he was turned into a criminal retroactivelly.

Changes:

1) Change it from "Crime punishable by more than a year in Prison" to "Violent Felony"

2) Remove the Latenburg law. If a person does something violent to a spouse or mate, then they should be charged with Battery, etc...not Domestic Violence.

3) Remove the Dishonorable Discharge ban. A person in the military can be DDed for something that isn't even a crime in the Civilian World. Why punish those who at least tried to defend America.

4) Change the law regarding getting rights back to remove disability at all levels.

5) Allow a person upon release a fair hearing to decide whether they are dangerous and shouldn't own guns.

6) Allow a new request for hearing every 5 years so that a person who keeps their nose clean can get their rights back.

7) Reread the constitution and add a clause to saying "This subsection shall only apply to crimes commited after the date of enactment of this Subsection." Ex Post Facto = Unconstitutional.

I'd like to see how you manage that, and if you do you shouldn't have a firearm. Cleaning the weapon could lead to about 20 people being shot....."Uh I don't know what happened it just kept going off all by itself........"



The prohibition relates to judgement. If someone steals $25,000 from the "little old lady" who they mange investments for what kinda judgement and responsibility does that show? Ya' need both to safely own/operate firearms.... Oh, but thats not a violent felony.

The other thing is your "system" requires a bacjground check, and someone gets to evaluate the risk and decide who is worthy to own firearms. Sounds like a system of endless appeals and delays.

The "requirements" to own a firearm

1) US citizen
2) over 18 (and yes minors should be able to own firearms with parental consent).

Those should be the "Qualifiers", you shouldn't have to PROVE anything else.

You can however be disqualified, and the Govt. has to prove the disqualification.
1) Felony conviction
2) Found Not Guilty of a crime by reason of mental disease or defect (ie insane, in the legal sense)
3) Commited to a mental hospital due to mental disease or defect, by a Court, not a civil authority.

Interestingly #2 is not a current disability. Temporary Insanity won't disable you. Only a adjudication of mental difficiance.

But, as I said Violent Felony. The following are all felonies:

[list=1]
[*]Walking through a construction site to save time[/*]
[*]Computer Hacking[/*]
[*]Watching a porno movie in your home within 1000 feet of a school (Some States)[/*]
[*]Having sex in any position other than missionary (Some States)[/*]
[*]Simply possessing a porno movie (Arkansas)[/*]
[*]Calling your wife or girlfriend a whore (Arkansas)[/*]
[/list=1]

How about this. From the Arkansas Statutes:

Yet another pearl of the Arkansas Stautes:

Isn't the Supreme Court hearing a case on whether a federal Judge can restore firearm privleges.  Does anyone know anything more on this?

it should be the way it was intended, ANY AMERICAN HAS THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS, how frickin hard is this to underfricking stand!, i am not a felon, but now in michigan if you have improper plates, you could be a felon, improper meaning, not renewed license plates/wrong plate on car, btw i have four geo trackers, what a pisser it would be if i goth the new plates confused, oh crap, now im a felon, i thought that if someone did a burglary and spent the prison time, he has paid his debt to the society, if this is true, why has he not been granted full rights, oh yeah, he must still be paying for the crime, this is bs, if you take away the right to keep and bear arms, as well as the right to vote, wtf, just kill him, it would be easier for the poor unfortunate american who no longer has any rights

RANT!

I think Stephen P. Halbrook has the right idea. If a felon has served his time he has paid his debt to society and full rights are restored, unless gun rights are disabled via court hearing. See (8) & (9): [url]http://www.constitution.org/leglrkba.htm[/url]

I say the right to own a firearm should extend to any person who has not been convicted of a violent crime or found to be mentally incompetent.    

If a person who was incarcerated for a violent crime served his time and was released, and was not accused of any violent crime or convicted of ANY crime for a period of five continuous years after his release, then he should be eligible to have his firearms rights restored.

A person convicted of a non-violent felony should be given his firearms rights back two years after release from prison, provided he
has not been accused of any crime since release.

A person with a prior mental history should be permitted to own firearms if he maintains a period of mental stability for a period of ten consecutive years after release from a treatment facility, in the judgement of a panel of qualified professional psychiatrists who are familiary with his full case.

A person under the age of eighteen should be permitted to own and use a firearm provided that his parent or legal guardian gives written consent and is himself legally permitted to own firearms.   In this case, formal and documented safety instruction for the minor would be required.

That's how I think it should be.

CJ