The Heritage Foundation by Amy Swearer 6/9/2023
Court Rules Government Can’t Strip Second Amendment Rights From Those Convicted of Minor, Nonviolent Offenses
Key Takeaways1. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held this week in Range v. Garland that the government cannot disarm people convicted of minor, nonviolent offenses.
2. The government had to demonstrate that its prohibition was consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation. This it could not do.
3. There’s a very high likelihood that the Supreme Court will step in to “resolve the split” and definitively settle the issue.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held this week in Range v. Garland that the government cannot disarm people convicted of minor, nonviolent offenses. In doing so, it handed down perhaps the most significant Second Amendment victory since the Supreme Court’s landmark decision last year, where it held that Americans have a constitutional right to carry handguns in public for self-defense.
The Third Circuit’s decision in Range is noteworthy for several reasons and likely sets up one of the next major Second Amendment battles at the Supreme Court. So, what, exactly, was this case about, and what can we expect next?
How Bryan Range Lost His Second Amendment RightsIn 1995, Bryan Range was struggling to financially provide for his wife and three young children with an annual income that placed the family of five well below the federal poverty line. He signed and submitted an application for food stamps that understated his income—a criminal misdemeanor in Pennsylvania, where he lived.
He accepted full responsibility for the misrepresentation, pled guilty to a single count of making a false statement to obtain food stamps, paid almost $3000 in restitution and fines, and completed his sentence of three years probation without incident. By all accounts, this was Range’s only significant interaction with the criminal justice system, and he has been an upstanding citizen for nearly three decades.
Nevertheless, because Range was convicted of a misdemeanor that, at least in Pennsylvania, carried a possible sentence of more than two years imprisonment, federal law prohibits Range from purchasing or possessing firearms until Pennsylvania restores his Second Amendment rights.
Pennsylvania, however, is a notoriously difficult state in which to have one’s gun rights restored, requiring a person to receive judicial expungement—something that can only be obtained after a gubernatorial pardon, which, in turn, may only be granted after a favorable recommendation from the state’s Board of Pardons.
Range’s Long Fight for His RightsSeveral years ago, Range filed a lawsuit in federal court that challenged the constitutionality of the federal statute (18 U.S.C. §922(g)(1)) that criminalized his possession of firearms.
He faced an uphill battle.
As I explained a 2018 Heritage Legal Memorandum, the Supreme Court’s decisions in D.C. v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) should have called into serious question laws that strip Americans of their right to keep and bear arms merely because they were convicted of nonviolent felonies.
However, in the years following those cases, lower courts nonetheless routinely used inappropriate interest-balancing tests to continue upholding lifetime gun bans for people who never presented a risk of violence (like Martha Stewart, for example).
More:
https://www.heritage.org/firearms/commentary/court-rules-government-cant-strip-second-amendment-rights-those-convicted-minor
