Once again, we have a felon playing the victim card.

At what point do you accept responsbility for your actions, live with your punishment, shut up, grow up and be a man?

Jim

Harold

You have a valid point Sir

We already have a process for the restoration of a convicted felon's 2nd amendment rights. It rarely happens, and that is as it should be.

The question has to be asked.

I think it will be just as important to us as the anti's will try to get as many of us disqualified as possible by making it a felony to do any of a number of innocuous things with guns.

At that point we will all appreciate the role that our protections of trial by jury, that we may not loose our rights capriciously without hearing public hearing where we may confront our accusers, etc, OR that we may have rights restored if we merit it (one of the most outstanding case was a guy who had ammo in his car from a gun show -- except that he was in Mexico for dinner, which with ammo is a felony; he lost his rights to keep arms in this country, and had no recourse to review since BATFE's duty to review that kind of case was unfunded -- THAT failure of justice was upheld by SCOTUS a few years back!)

Dan

I am pretty opinionated on this subject.
1. When a person has paid for his/her crime that's it. The debt is paid. After you pay off your mortgage, the bank can't come back and demand more money.
2. I don't know how many of you have looked at the General Statutes for your respective states but there are quite a few felony offenses, many of which are for non-violent crimes having nothing to do with firearms. My state just passed a felony vandalism law whereby if someone (say a stupid teenager for instance) commits an act of vandalism that causes over $3,000.00 worth of damage, it is a felony offense. I can see some kid spray paint graffiti on someone's car and the victim presents the judge with a bill from the local body shop for $3,500 to paint the car (had one painted lately?). Now the kid is a felon. Yeah, yeah, he should have thought about it before he did it, but most kids don't. Don't get me wrong, I'm not soft on crime and he should be punished and have to make restitution to the victim. He shouldn't however be denied the right to own a firearm.
3. Contrary to popular belief all convicted felons are not recidivists. If there is no process to restore ALL their rights, then what incentive is there for them to change for the better. We can't pick and choose what rights they can and can't have i.e, "well buddy you can vote now, but don't get any ideas about getting a shotgun for next hunting season!" What part of inalienable do people not understand? If you are going to restore one right, then the rest come with it! When we start picking and choosing what rights people should have we are on a slippery slope, like it or not. This is the same tactic the anti-gunners want to use against us.
4. Everyone has a basic human right of self defense.

Last observation and I'll shut up! I know several convicted felons who were convicted of non-violent felonies many moons ago in their younger years who are now pillars of the community. If they never told anyone that they were a convicted felon, no one would have a clue. The current legal system concerning felonies and firearm ownership constitutes a life sentence upon the felon. There has to be a better way. I'm not convinced the petition process is the way to go because those "good ole boys" who are connected financially or politically have a far greater chance of having their petition granted than the average Joe.
Some of you guys had some good comments and some I respectfully disagree with. The above is my opinion and that's all.
That's it, I'm done.

Mike Diehl
"I disagree. Sentencing is not deemed compensation to victims, and release is not deemed proof of reformation."

Actually some of the new structured sentencing requirements require the felon to compensate the victim (in the case of robberies etc.)Obviously one cannot in my opinion compensate for murder and rape or other heinous crimes and those felons, I too believe are lifetime felons and should be prohibited firearms ownership. Sentencing is deemed compensation to society and results in the loss of the convicted's freedom for a specified time. Like it or not if a convicted felon serves his/her full time, society is considered compensated.

"Felons tend to commit crimes. They lose their right to bear arms on conviction because it is well understood that they are many times more likely than a non-convict to commit a crime."
Where did you get those facts, "The Crimestopper's Journal"?
There are two types of felons, habitual, and one time. Another important fact that is conveniently overlooked is a felony is a crime that is defined by law to be of a more serious nature than a misdemeanor crime. Defining elements may be the amount of money stolen, or the degree of violence against a victim. Being convicted of a felony reveals nothing about the offender's propensity to commit a crime again or to become a repeat offender. The offender's record and background can be checked at sentencing and it can be reasonably determined if the offender is a habitual criminal or it was a one time error in judgement.

"That is a poor analogy between fulfilling a mutual contract and serving a criminal sentence. Society never asked the felon to commit the crime, and society never asked the felon whether or not he wanted to serve the sentence upon conviction."
Agreed, that was a poor analogy.

"Doesn't bother me in the slightest. Breaking and entering is a "nonviolent" offense. Was I in charge, burglars would not only lose their license to bear arms, they'd wear non-removable radio tracking collars."
Breaking and Entering and Burglary are two separate offenses in most states. A burglary is a B&E that occurs at night and is considered more severe if the house is occupied. A moot point and an extreme example of a non-violent felony. It was not exactly what I had in mind when I posted. There is also misdemeanor B&E and Felony B&E. The difference in most states is the amount stolen. So, if someone is convicted of Misdemeanor B&E he/she can own a firearm, but if someone steals $500.00 more and it is a Felony, he/she can't. Doesn't make much sense does it?

I can understand your anger with the chollo kid that broke into your house because I actually have a strong distaste for thieves myself. There is however a great difference between my example of a kid spraying graffiti versus the kid who broke into your home and was found to be a repeat offender.

"Which ones aren't and how would anyone know? The fact that one can't know until a long time after the person is released is why society reasonably and sanely presumes them unfit for firearms ownership until they can prove otherwise."

I somewhat answered this above. It can be determined with a reasonable measure of accuracy who is a one time error offender and who is headed for three strikes and you're out. A person is a felon only because that person has been convicted of a felony crime. It doesn't automatically confer habitual criminal status on that individual.

"What part of inalienable do people not understand?"

"That is a valid point. I propose, as an alternative, that we execute most felons, rather than deprive them of their 2nd Amendment rights."
Well while we're at it let's execute those convicted of liable or defamation of charactor rather than deprive them of their 1st Amendment rights. Don't forget about the 5th Amendment too, hell if they plead the 5th they have to be guilty, so let's execute them too. I will give you credit that you said most felons and not all felons.

"The current legal system concerning felonies and firearm ownership constitutes a life sentence upon the felon."

"I would not want it any other way."

I'll just have to agree that we disagree on that one.

I partially agree with you that there are certain felonies that are usually committed by career dirt bags (criminals) and I have no problem depriving them of their 2nd amendment rights.
I'll leave you with this hypothetical scenario. A man breaks into a house to rob it. He takes some things and is discovered by the lady of the house who yells for her husband. The husband arms himself prior to investigating the commotion. The robber stabs the lady (not fatally) and runs toward the door. The husband comes downstairs sees his wounded wife and yells at the robber who has exited the house. The robber turns around to fact the husband. The husband sees the knife, shoots the robber and kills him. He (the husband) is indicted for manslaughter because the robber was running away and was no longer a threat to the household plus the wife made a full recovery from her wound. Because of the trial judge's strict interpretation of the elements of manslaughter and his subsequent charge to the jury the jury agrees and convicts him. Now he is a convicted felon and can't own a firearm simply for protecting his house. It may sound far fetched, but there is a similar case I read about in NJ. Do you also approve of the Lautenburg Amendment which applies if one was convicted of some form of minor assault like shoving a wife or girlfriend and taking a plea to simple asault to avoid a trial.

Please don't take my disagreement personally because I generally am in agreement with many of your other posts on this blog. We both are obviously passionate on our views concerning this subject.

JOhn R. -

No problem, not taking it personally. You raise some important points about someone making a mistake. I, too, believe in do-overs. I do, however, think the current system requires a convicted felon to meet a very strong burden of proof that they are in fact just a person who made one dumb, relatively harmless mistake. The presumption is that a felon can't be trusted with a firearm, even if they've served their sentence, until they have met a very high standard of evidence. "Otherwise a nice guy and a contributor to the community" aren't sufficient.

I think that is fair, just, and appropriate.

It's not like a convicted, firearm-less felon who's "done their time" has no recourse to self defense or hunting. They just can't buy, own, (or, as far as I know, carry) a firearm. I do not have a problem with that.

I would NEVER be happy with a system that presumed that even a "non-violent one-time offender" should automatically have their 2nd Amendment rights restored merely for completing a sentence and making restitution. I'm not against restoration of 2nd Amendment rights, but I think the proces that we currently have is just fine.

That is my last post on the subject as I think we have beaten that proverbial horse pretty well. I respect everyone's opinion and right to have it.

I will have to do a little research on felony offenses in my state to produce what I think would be a fair and accurate list. Such a list however will be at best subjective. I understand your concern about "easily having 2nd Amendment rights restored" and I would not advocate a rubber stamp process. It would have to be something like a time/condition process where a lenght of time and certain conditions or better yet requirements had to be met. The process could include references, one of which had to be a chief law enforcement officer from the town or county where the applicant resides. These are ideas I'm just putting out here.