Friday, December 19, 2014

Appeals court strikes down federal gun law as unconstitutional

 Appeals court strikes down federal gun law as unconstitutional

It might not get the news coverage it deserves with everything else going on at the moment, but the unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati against a federal gun law is a very big deal.  The court held that the federal ban on gun ownership by people who have been committed to a mental institution is an unconstitutional violation of the Second Amendment.  Rulings of that caliber (if you’ll pardon the pun) don’t come down all that often.  The previous instance was the Supreme Court’s Heller ruling against Washington D.C.’s firearms ban in 2008, which those on both sides of the gun control debate would agree was a very big deal.

More @ Human Events

8 comments:

  1. Good decision from the court. The man went through some rough times and got some help, but he shouldn't lose his Constitutional rights. The same is true for the combat veterans that the government seems to fear.

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    1. The same is true for the combat veterans that the government seems to fear.

      Oh yes, after all we can't have those who believe in the Constitution actually defend it.

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  2. Being one of those vets, I know first hand. Thankfully, the first state I lived in, when I got better, the sheriff was reasonable. Funny though, in a (then) state where 'shall-issue' wasn't in play, I got a license to buy, so did. Living, now, in a 'shall-issue' state, I can't even buy a shotgun. Thankfully, I have most firearms I would want, though a permit to carry would be nice. At least I can keep a pistol in my auto.

    Why? The last state wasn't hooked to the FBI, current state is. The FBI is hooked to the Vets Admin, and the Vets Admin puts the nubs on most with a ptsd rating. I think this state would work it out, but with a heart at a level where I could go on the heart transplant list (if I trusted them... long story, trust me when I say they can't be trusted... like missing that diagnosis for a couple of decades, among other things), it's difficult for me to jump through the hoops to get that expunged through the state.

    Bleh.

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    1. Thanks for the story and hope all goes well. Are either of the states in the South?

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  3. No. The first was Iowa. I left because of the politics. The other is in the SW. I love the notion of the South, more so recently. But I'm a hot-body. I need stone cold winters, and low humidity, and enjoy highlands and mountains.

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  4. I'm probably going to get in trouble here for saying this, but I've got some misgivings about this ruling. I'm as pro-2nd amendment as it gets, and I've got a soft spot in my heart for vets and the ungrateful government they served, but I'm not really sure that the chronically mentally ill, like Adam Lanza or that fruitcake that just shot two cops in New York, should be permitted to possess firearms. I honestly don't know where the dividing line should be, but clearly, some patients should never be allowed to own guns.

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  5. Certainly those chronically mentally ill should not have them, but this ruling wasn't about them.

    The law provides individuals with such troubles in their distant past with an opportunity to prove they have recovered from their disability, but unfortunately federal funding for programs to demonstrate relief was terminated over 20 years ago, and Tyler’s home state of Michigan never set up a program of its own. Tyler, and other Michigan residents, were therefore left with a theoretical concession to their Second Amendment rights that was impossible to take advantage of in practice. He passed screenings by both his physician and a psychologist, who agreed that his depressive episode decades previously had been an isolated incident, and he has since remarried, but none of that was good enough to satisfy the federal gun law.

    That didn’t pass muster with Judge Danny Boggs, who drew a sharp distinction between the need to keep guns away from the mentally ill, and an unconstitutional burden placed upon rehabilitated individuals with brief periods of difficulty in their distant past.

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