Federal Appeals Court Upholds Federal Law Banning Guns For Illegal Aliens

[Elderberry]

Legal Insurrection by Jane Coleman 8/29/2024

Illegal aliens don’t have Second Amendment rights: ““an alien . . . does not become one of the people to whom these things are secured by our Constitution by an attempt to enter forbidden by law.”

An appeals court has upheld a federal law banning illegal aliens from possessing guns, rejecting a constitutional challenge brought by a Mexican migrant who entered the country unlawfully.

The migrant, Jose Paz Medina-Cantu, was a repeat offender: He had previously been deported and removed when he was arrested by Texas boarder patrol agents in 2022. The government charged him with two separate counts, possession of a firearm as an illegal alien and illegal reentry into the United States. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 months in prison, but preserved his right to appeal the first count on the grounds that the Second Amendment protected his right to keep and bear arms.

Medina-Cantu had earlier asked a district court to dismiss the first charge. He claimed that the gun restriction on illegal aliens violated the Second Amendment in light of US Supreme Court’s recent ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, where the Court required gun laws to be “consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” The government couldn’t meet that burden, he argued, because banning illegal aliens from having guns was a tradition that did not exist when the Second Amendment was adopted.

The district court disagreed, finding sufficient historical context for the federal gun ban. Medina-Cantu then appealed.

Earlier this week, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s ruling. The Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen and in a later case “did not unequivocally abrogate our precedent that the plain text of the Second Amendment does not encompass illegal aliens,” it held.

In other words, someone who is here illegally can’t claim the protection of the law of the land that excludes him from that protection.

More: https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/08/federal-appeals-court-upholds-federal-law-banning-guns-for-illegal-aliens/

[Sighlass]

Well as much as I hate illegals being armed, I don't like this ruling because the right to defend oneself should be centered not around rights "given" in the 2nd Amendment but rights centered from God (to defend oneself). The 2nd Amendment is limiting the government from taking God-given rights. This illegals should be deported and repeat defenders should be deported to Antarctica and not easily allowed transportation back to America. Just saying the bigger issue is his illegal status that has been ignored by our FUSA liberals.

That said, the ruling, (that Elderberry highlighted in his post)... should be considered in a broader scope that illegals that have children also are not entitled to have their children considered "citizens".

[Kamaji]

I don't think the ruling is correct.