A coalition of gun-rights organizations has joined together in filing a brief asking the Supreme Court of the United States to hear a case dealing with the federal ban on firearm possession by nonviolent felons.
On November 7, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), National Rifle Association (NRA), Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and FPC Action Foundation filed the amicus brief with the Supreme Court urging the court to grant certiorari in Duarte v. United States. At issue is whether the law placing a lifetime gun ban on nonviolent felons is constitutional under the Second Amendment.
“This Court has repeatedly stated that the only way the government can justify an arms-bearing regulation is by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” the brief states. “There is no tradition of disarming peaceable citizens. Historically, nonviolent criminals—including nonviolent felons—who did not demonstrate a propensity for violence retained the ability to exercise their right to keep and bear arms. Indeed, some laws expressly allowed or even required them to keep and bear arms.”
The brief includes a long discussion of various laws banning gun ownership during the founding period, all of which were discriminatory against one group or another.
“Our nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation demonstrates that the Second Amendment prevents the disarmament of peaceable Americans, including nonviolent felons such as Mr. Duarte,” the brief concludes. “Certiorari should be granted to clarify that the historical justification for felon disarmament laws referenced in Heller is the tradition of disarming dangerous persons.”
Kostas Moros, SAF director of legal research and education, said in a news release announcing the filing that the law runs afoul of several critical Supreme Court rulings.
“The Ninth Circuit’s ruling defies Heller, Bruen, and Rahimi by upholding a lifetime disarmament of someone who committed nonviolent offenses, ignoring that our historical tradition only supports disarming ‘dangerous’ persons—those with a proven proclivity for violence or threats to government,” Moros said. “From colonial laws targeting violent threats to founding-era ratification proposals protecting ‘peaceable citizens,’ the shared common denominator has always been danger, and no precedent exists for stripping Second Amendment rights from nonviolent felons. We urge the Court to intervene and clarify that felon bans are ‘presumptively lawful’ only when applied to dangerous individuals.”
Speaking for his organization, FPC President Brandon Combs said the Supreme Court should hear the case and declare the law unconstitutional.
“Never in our history has any government had the authority to permanently disarm an individual for non-violent crimes,” Combs said in a news release about the brief. “The lifetime federal ban of today would have been unthinkable to the Founding Fathers. The Supreme Court should grant review in this and other cases to restore the right to keep and bear arms of all peaceable Americans.”
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