1/11/2013

1968 Misdemeanor Conviction prevents U.S. Navy veteran from getting gun for self protection

So does this law pass the reasonable basis test?  The Supreme Court has struck down many laws based on the claim that there is no rational basis for the law.  So does a 45 year ban on gun ownership for someone who probably would never have pleaded to the misdemeanor if he had known what the law was going to be changed to decades later pass the rational basis test?
A three-judge panel in Washington upheld a lower-court ruling “which found ‘no constitutional impediment’ to including common-law misdemeanants” within the federal firearms ban. The lower court observed that “the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited,” U.S. Circuit Judge David Tatel wrote in today’s opinion.
The federal ban applies to several categories of people including those who are mentally ill or who have been convicted of felonies or certain kinds of misdemeanors. . . .
Jefferson Wayne Schrader, of Cleveland, Georgia, sued to challenge the ban in 2010 after a companion tried to buy him a shotgun and Schrader tried to purchase a handgun in two separate transactions.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation blocked the shotgun purchase when the National Instant Criminal Background Check computer system flagged Schrader’s July 1968 conviction for misdemeanor assault. When informed of the rejection, Schrader canceled his handgun order.
The assault occurred while Schrader, then 20, was serving in the Navy and encountered a member of a street gang who had previously assaulted him, according to his complaint.
Schrader punched his assailant and was convicted of common- law assault and battery and fined $100. The court imposed no jail time. Schrader went on to serve a tour of duty in Vietnam and had no other brushes with the law, except for one traffic violation, he said in his complaint.
. . .
Here is the cost of background checks.  Of course, false positives also stop people from getting quickly that they need for self protection.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Chas said...

Markie Marxist sez: "Eventually, we hope to have NICS flag people for getting parking tickets. Retroactively. There might still be one old guy out in Montana who has only ever ridden a horse in his life, so it's not like we'll be eliminating the Second Amendment for everyone, will it? Of course not! Ha! Ha!"

1/13/2013 6:09 PM  
Blogger Martin G. Schalz said...

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

Yep! The Constitution of the U.S., void where prohibited by law.

As far as the court(s) declaring that there is no impediment to their actions, to infringe, is to deny one his or her rights.

1/14/2013 1:20 PM  

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