After New York was convicted of stripping Donald Trump of his Second Amendment rights, a federal jury in Delaware is considering whether Hunter Biden violated three firearms laws when he purchased a revolver in 2018 Law.
The two cases — one involving the president’s son and the other an opponent in this year’s election — highlight the arbitrary nature of federal law that strips Americans of their gun rights on grounds that have nothing to do with public safety. This constitutionally dubious law treats millions of Americans with no history of violence as public threats who can never be trusted with guns.
This policy is relatively new. The original federal restrictions, enacted in 1938, only applied to violent crimes such as murder, manslaughter, rape, kidnapping and robbery. In 1961, Congress expanded the ban to cover nonviolent crimes punishable by more than one year in prison.
Adam Winkler, a UCLA law professor, noted that this category of “barred persons” is “overly inclusive” and covers many crimes that are “not at all violent.” The cases of Trump and Biden illustrate this point.
Putting aside the shaky legal reasoning used by New York prosecutors to convert hush payments into 34 felonies, falsifying business records, even to aid or conceal “another crime,” is not a way to mark someone as vulnerable to harm or killing of violent crimes with guns. Purchasing a gun also does not qualify as an “illegal user” of a “controlled substance,” which Biden allegedly did in 2018 when he admitted to regularly using crack cocaine.
Whatever you think of Biden’s suitability as a gun owner at the time, he’s been sober for several years. However, if he is convicted of gun charges including unlawful possession of a firearm and falsely representing he was a legal buyer, he not only faces up to 25 years in prison; he will also permanently lose his Second Amendment rights.
Before his trial, Biden argued that the gun charges should be dismissed because a ban on drug addicts from owning guns was unconstitutional. His lawyers noted that last year, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction of a marijuana consumer under the statute, rejecting the government’s argument that his prosecution was “consistent with this country’s historic tradition of gun control.” Constitutional Test The U.S. Supreme Court was established in 2022.
U.S. District Judge Marilyn Noreca, who is presiding over Biden’s case, denied his motion, saying he failed to show that the injunction he allegedly flouted was unconstitutional on its face. But she said he could still challenge the ban that applied to him if he was convicted.
In addition to the Fifth Circuit, at least three federal courts have held that prosecuting marijuana users with firearms is unconstitutional. Courts have also challenged rules that bar people with multiple criminal records from owning guns.
Last year, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals restored the gun rights of a man convicted of food stamp fraud. The decision follows a federal judge in Pennsylvania doing the same for a man convicted of DUI.
Although the crimes are misdemeanors, they trigger a federal ban because they are theoretically punishable by more than a year in prison. The Third Circuit highlighted the danger of giving lawmakers broad discretion to “manipulate the Second Amendment” by deciding how to label and punish crimes.
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in a 2019 dissent from an appeals court ruling involving a mail fraud conviction that history “proves that the Legislature has the authority to prohibit dangerous persons from possessing firearms.” “But this power only applies to those dangerous”.
As the Trump and Biden cases illustrate, the test requires more than a legislative decision to classify a crime as a felony.
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