There has long been a provision of federal law that allows Americans to petition the U.S. Attorney General (AG) for relief from firearm disabilities on a case-by-case basis, a little-known piece of information due to the function lying dormant since 1991. You see, it’s easier to lose the right to purchase or possess firearms than one might think, and many of the offenses and the conditions surrounding them point to the fact that the prohibited individual does not pose any enhanced risk of physical harm to themselves or the public. So why, then, and how have Americans lost this fundamental access to the restoration of a Constitutionally enumerated liberty?
It began in 1991 when a Bolshevik anti-Second Amendment group, the Violence Policy Center, released a report that claimed occasions upon which some citizens who were granted relief would later go on to re-offend. It is important to note that although the AG oversees the provision, the administration process for the petitions had been handed down to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). Politicians, in their ever-knee-jerking zeal to strip Americans of their right to bear arms, responded to the report in Congress by passing language in ATF funding bills that prohibited the use of any funds for this purpose.
Now, if you’re thinking that Congress is passing bills contradictory to the law and circumventing both the rights of Americans and the authority of the AG, then you are right on track, but this is nothing new. Look at all the existing gun control laws, both on the federal and state side, that already circumvent Constitutional law and the politicians and activist judges that have ushered them into existence and protected them from legal challenges. It is easy, then, to determine that all branches of the government have long since been in cahoots to some extent and that the tyrannical ship sailed on the American people years ago.
Last week, The Washington Post published an editorial in its opinion section by two law professors who argued that the government should resume funding the rights restoration provision on the grounds that categories of prohibited individuals include people who would not be demonstrably dangerous and whose Second Amendment prohibitions would likely not survive U.S. Supreme Court caselaw scrutiny. The professors also stipulate that the ability to seek relief itself may shield the overly broad categories of prohibition from further Constitutional challenges, which could perhaps lead to the Supreme Court striking down possession prohibitions entirely, two issues that I do not find mutually exclusive. However, I am not sure the High Court, even in its current perceived configuration, is capable of such Constitutional reverence.
The issue of rights restoration recently reemerged as the Department of Justice (DOJ) under President Trump has started reviewing petitions through the Office of the Pardon Attorney, a very clever workaround to the illegal ATF funding rider issued by the Politburo, AKA Congress, which deprives Americans of not only their Second Amendment liberty but also their right to due process. Legal precedent requires the government to carry the burden of proof that an individual poses an enhanced risk of harm to self or others before prohibiting them from purchasing or possessing firearms.
Those of us who live in reality understand that criminals intent on violent crime and murder do not give pause to their actions in order to follow legal protocol and procedure when obtaining firearms. Instead, they see those laws as a means to make law-abiding citizens more vulnerable to their objectives and, in that sense, make great partners to the left and any lawmakers who follow the subversive path of the gun control agenda. Leaving Americans unprotected in this manner invites violence, which creates the oppertunity for further infringements upon our rights under the guise of protecting our safety, and that cycle is designed to continue until all freedom is lost. Guess what happens next.
When I hear remarks about America being a beacon of freedom, I think to myself, sure, maybe relatively speaking, depending on what state you live in, but not in any general understanding. I’m sure it was at one time, long before I was a twinkle in the eyes of my parents. I wish I could have seen it back then. But individual liberty has not survived the scrutiny of disingenuous agendas and their narratives that claim to know better what Americans need than Americans themselves. The idea that politicians and the government need to strip our freedoms to protect us is insulting and is not even original, as the same tired scheme has been used ad nauseam historically to subjugate populations around the world.
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