Case: Should Felons be allowed to own firearms?
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Old Dog
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We see this claim often, documented never.
Gosh, that'd be an awful lot of undetected crime going on... Let's focus on reality and worry about felony crimes that are actually detected and that would lead to actual charges being filed.
My point is that it is not an easy thing to be convicted of a felony in most states. One makes a seriously bad choice or a series of bad choices. As a subscriber to the notion of the social contract, I have no problem with placing obstacles to future firearms ownership in the cases of those that knowingly -- and most often -- repeatedly, violate the social contract.
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Need to focus on the question more and less on a general critique of the U.S. legal system. I realize that there is overlap here, but once the discussion stops being about firearms/RKBA and starts being about general problems with how crimes are categorized and punished in the U.S. it's off topic.
Need to focus on the question more and less on a general critique of the U.S. legal system. I realize that there is overlap here, but once the discussion stops being about firearms/RKBA and starts being about general problems with how crimes are categorized and punished in the U.S. it's off topic.
Seedy Character
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They lost their rights because of THEIR poor behavior. Our dilemma is not to lose our rights because of their behavior.
No, we should not unilaterally give felons the right to own firearms. To me that is just crazy.
If you wanted to setup a system where a felon could apply for the reinstatement of their right to own a firearm based on their history and the likelihood of committing violent acts in the future I could see supporting that myself. The default should be no firearm ownership unless judged to be sound mind and very unlikely to commit crimes in the future. Victims should have the right to voice an opinion on the matter.
I would be much more apt to unilaterally give felons the right to vote.
If you wanted to setup a system where a felon could apply for the reinstatement of their right to own a firearm based on their history and the likelihood of committing violent acts in the future I could see supporting that myself. The default should be no firearm ownership unless judged to be sound mind and very unlikely to commit crimes in the future. Victims should have the right to voice an opinion on the matter.
I would be much more apt to unilaterally give felons the right to vote.
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gunmechanic
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I feel if you did you punishment you should get your rights restored !Every living thing on this planet deserves at least one second chance after all not one thing on this planet is perfect!
Cacas ex Fortuna
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In 1967 when you were let out of prison, you could go out and buy a gun. Some states like WY gave you $35 a horse and a sixgun. Now they give you the monies that those items are worth today.
In the North East the day you get out of prison you right to move about and firearms are restored.
like it should be. There you do not lose you right to vote during jail time either.
Just another liberal lie. If you look at all the 2A Supreme court filings you will find 6 felons that were cought6 with firearms, and the court said they had the right to own them. That was back in the 80s before the dark times, before the cabal.
In the North East the day you get out of prison you right to move about and firearms are restored.
like it should be. There you do not lose you right to vote during jail time either.
Just another liberal lie. If you look at all the 2A Supreme court filings you will find 6 felons that were cought6 with firearms, and the court said they had the right to own them. That was back in the 80s before the dark times, before the cabal.
dogtown tom
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1. If loss of ones gun rights is unconstitutional, why not let inmates possess firearms?
2. I would bet that 99% of those doing time have been given multiple second chances.
3. No one is expected to be perfect.
4. One is expected to abide by laws. If you can't, move.
dogtown tom
Member
Not legally.
The Federal Firearms Act of 1938 prohibited the sale or transfer of firearms to felons.
Source?
Again, source?
Federal prohibition remains.
Only two states, not the entire northeast, allow inmates to vote. (Maine and Vermont)
Oh please.
Jimfern
Member
If you served your sentence, I don't see why you shouldn't have all your rights as an American re-instated. Are you less American, or not American, because you went to prison?
lightman
Member
This seems like one of those issues that has no iron clad answer. If a person is convicted and has served out their sentence have they paid their debt to society? Are they rehabilitated? Can they be trusted? Does it matter? They can readily steal/ acquire a firearm off of the street?
I guess the real answer is the one I dislike the most. "It depends"!
I guess the real answer is the one I dislike the most. "It depends"!
The_Quartermaster
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What's the difference between a murderer, a pedophile, or a rapist that's American and a murderer, a pedophile, or a rapist that's not American?
Nothing, there's no difference between the two other than nationalities.
Being an American has nothing to do with it, heinous crimes are still heinous crimes regardless.
ColoradoMinuteMan
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I think he's just using "less of an American" as a proxy for "less entitled to rights under the Constitution." He's doesn't appear to be using it to describe a difference between Americans and other nationalities. If recidivism is a serious concern for an individual as it relates to rape, pedophilia, or any other violent crime, the individual should remain in custody. If you are unlikely to reoffend and the sentence allows it, you should be released and your rights restored once you have serves your probationary period.
dogtown tom
Member
Thats a question for the victim.
The court/judge/jury may have rendered a punishment as outlined by law, but that has nothing to do with "debt to society".
The U.S. has not only the highest percentage of its population in prison, but also one of the highest recidivism rates....."In 2005, about 68% of 405,000 released prisoners were arrested for a new crime within three years, and 77% were arrested within five years."
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/recidivism-rates-by-state
So no, they aren't rehabilitated, can't be trusted and it sure as heck matters to the victim.
You've been a member of a gun forum for a decade and still ask that question?
<----grew up four miles from Sherwood.
If state or federal law says loss of voting or gun rights is part of the sentence.......too bad, so sad. If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
Madcap_Magician
Member
This comes up every month or so, and it's always people saying the same things, many of which are extremely poorly thought out. I am going to try to elaborate my thoughts without any unkindness.
No, felons should not be able to own firearms. I think there are caveats to that - that felons should be able to go through a fair process to regain their rights, including firearms ownership and voting, but that it should not be automatic or easy (but should not be substantially burdensome from a financial standpoint) and should be contingent on law-abiding behavior post-release for a duration of time commensurate to the offense committed similar to how conviction history and severity plays into sentencing guidelines now. I also think that fewer things should be felonies or federal crimes.
Q: Most felons are just victims of the administrative bureaucratic state/nonviolent offenders/in prison for being caught with a joint!
A: This is demonstrably untrue. The US has about 2 million people incarcerated for one reason or another, more than half of which are in state prisons, since this is where most criminal convictions end up. Of those 2 million people, the overwhelming plurality and biggest single category of inmates or arrestees (about 800,000), are in jail or prison because they were convicted of or are pending disposition for violent criminal charges. Of the 300,000-some peole who are in jail or prison for drug charges, most are in jail or prison for sale or distribution, and of those who are in jail for possession, many are in local jails pending case disposition and conviction, not because they were sentenced to jail. There are about as many people in custody for property crimes as for drugs.
America is, frankly, for a first-world nation, simply a violent country by comparison. There are a lot of reasons for this, many of which are cultural and demographic, and it can't be boiled down to having too many or too few guns. Really guns are a nonissue.
Q: If a felon has served his time, he's paid his debt to society and should have all his rights back.
A: Roughly 70% of convicts are rearrested within five years of release. Whether a convict who has completed his sentence has 'paid his debt to society' is a matter of opinion, but I would venture that the justice system is not a mathematical equation. Going to prison is meant to punish the convict, hopefully to reform him, and to protect innocent people from the convict by removing him from free society for a period of time. It is not like an accounting balance sheet, where you can just add enough black ink to cancel out the red ink and then you're good. No imprisonment or fine is going to restore the injury suffered by the victim. Further, recidivism rates only count re-arrest rates - there is no way to know for sure how many crimes someone commits before they actually get arrested, but I think it's a safe bet to say that most criminals have committed multiple crimes before they actually go to prison for one. So limiting some of their civil rights after release is largely a matter of risk management for a population that is highly likely to reoffend, and this is not subjective, it is born out by data.
Q: If a felon can't be trusted with a gun after he's released, he shouldn't be released in the first place.
A: There are two issues with this statement. The first is practical, the second is legal. On the first, it is simply not practical to keep all violent criminals incarcerated until we can be sure they won't reoffend - there are not enough jails or enough funding. Further, the bigger practical issue is that there's no way to know with any reliability whether a felon is going to reoffend. How can you determine whether a convict can be 'trusted' after release? Who judges that?
The second issue is a matter of constitutional justice. Far too many people on gun boards are Second Amendment absolutists in the worst way. What I mean by that is not that they believe in the literal and strict textual interpretation of the Second Amendment, or that gun control laws are all unconstitutional. What I mean by that is that a certain breed of Second Amendment absolutists only seem to know or care about the Second Amendment as though that was the only sentence in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Most of the Bill of Rights has nothing to do with law-abiding citizens - most of it has to do with the rights of people accused of crimes to substantive and procedural due process of law. And these amendments are no less important to the maintenance of a free country than the Second or First amendments.
The relevant amendment here is the Eighth Amendment right to not be subject to excessive bail or fines or cruel and unusual punishment. How do advocates of the position of keeping prisoners incarcerated indefinitely square indefinite detention of American citizens for any crime until they have been arbitrarily deemed trustworthy with the Eighth Amendment? No one has been able to explain this to me, and I think it's because they don't care about it because the Second Amendment affects them as law-abiding citizens, and they don't think the Eighth Amendment will affect them personally. This is exactly the same mental attitude that casually anti-gun people hold when they support gun control out of a vague sense that it must do some good and because they do not personally incur any of the burdens of that policy.
Right now the simple fact is that we, in the balancing interest of procedural justice, have to release people from prison for (good) legal and (unavoidable) practical reasons even when we are quite confident they're just going to reoffend.
Q: Felons can just get guns illegally, anyway.
A: This is true, but what is also true is that it's easier for them to get guns if there are no legal restrictions on their ability to do it. Making it illegal for felons to own and purchase firearms makes it harder for them to get by forcing them to chase a more limited supply of illegal guns and by providing law enforcement the possibility to convict felons for being in possession of a gun without also requiring them to have victimized someone with it.
No, felons should not be able to own firearms. I think there are caveats to that - that felons should be able to go through a fair process to regain their rights, including firearms ownership and voting, but that it should not be automatic or easy (but should not be substantially burdensome from a financial standpoint) and should be contingent on law-abiding behavior post-release for a duration of time commensurate to the offense committed similar to how conviction history and severity plays into sentencing guidelines now. I also think that fewer things should be felonies or federal crimes.
Q: Most felons are just victims of the administrative bureaucratic state/nonviolent offenders/in prison for being caught with a joint!
A: This is demonstrably untrue. The US has about 2 million people incarcerated for one reason or another, more than half of which are in state prisons, since this is where most criminal convictions end up. Of those 2 million people, the overwhelming plurality and biggest single category of inmates or arrestees (about 800,000), are in jail or prison because they were convicted of or are pending disposition for violent criminal charges. Of the 300,000-some peole who are in jail or prison for drug charges, most are in jail or prison for sale or distribution, and of those who are in jail for possession, many are in local jails pending case disposition and conviction, not because they were sentenced to jail. There are about as many people in custody for property crimes as for drugs.
America is, frankly, for a first-world nation, simply a violent country by comparison. There are a lot of reasons for this, many of which are cultural and demographic, and it can't be boiled down to having too many or too few guns. Really guns are a nonissue.
Q: If a felon has served his time, he's paid his debt to society and should have all his rights back.
A: Roughly 70% of convicts are rearrested within five years of release. Whether a convict who has completed his sentence has 'paid his debt to society' is a matter of opinion, but I would venture that the justice system is not a mathematical equation. Going to prison is meant to punish the convict, hopefully to reform him, and to protect innocent people from the convict by removing him from free society for a period of time. It is not like an accounting balance sheet, where you can just add enough black ink to cancel out the red ink and then you're good. No imprisonment or fine is going to restore the injury suffered by the victim. Further, recidivism rates only count re-arrest rates - there is no way to know for sure how many crimes someone commits before they actually get arrested, but I think it's a safe bet to say that most criminals have committed multiple crimes before they actually go to prison for one. So limiting some of their civil rights after release is largely a matter of risk management for a population that is highly likely to reoffend, and this is not subjective, it is born out by data.
Q: If a felon can't be trusted with a gun after he's released, he shouldn't be released in the first place.
A: There are two issues with this statement. The first is practical, the second is legal. On the first, it is simply not practical to keep all violent criminals incarcerated until we can be sure they won't reoffend - there are not enough jails or enough funding. Further, the bigger practical issue is that there's no way to know with any reliability whether a felon is going to reoffend. How can you determine whether a convict can be 'trusted' after release? Who judges that?
The second issue is a matter of constitutional justice. Far too many people on gun boards are Second Amendment absolutists in the worst way. What I mean by that is not that they believe in the literal and strict textual interpretation of the Second Amendment, or that gun control laws are all unconstitutional. What I mean by that is that a certain breed of Second Amendment absolutists only seem to know or care about the Second Amendment as though that was the only sentence in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Most of the Bill of Rights has nothing to do with law-abiding citizens - most of it has to do with the rights of people accused of crimes to substantive and procedural due process of law. And these amendments are no less important to the maintenance of a free country than the Second or First amendments.
The relevant amendment here is the Eighth Amendment right to not be subject to excessive bail or fines or cruel and unusual punishment. How do advocates of the position of keeping prisoners incarcerated indefinitely square indefinite detention of American citizens for any crime until they have been arbitrarily deemed trustworthy with the Eighth Amendment? No one has been able to explain this to me, and I think it's because they don't care about it because the Second Amendment affects them as law-abiding citizens, and they don't think the Eighth Amendment will affect them personally. This is exactly the same mental attitude that casually anti-gun people hold when they support gun control out of a vague sense that it must do some good and because they do not personally incur any of the burdens of that policy.
Right now the simple fact is that we, in the balancing interest of procedural justice, have to release people from prison for (good) legal and (unavoidable) practical reasons even when we are quite confident they're just going to reoffend.
Q: Felons can just get guns illegally, anyway.
A: This is true, but what is also true is that it's easier for them to get guns if there are no legal restrictions on their ability to do it. Making it illegal for felons to own and purchase firearms makes it harder for them to get by forcing them to chase a more limited supply of illegal guns and by providing law enforcement the possibility to convict felons for being in possession of a gun without also requiring them to have victimized someone with it.
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dogtown tom
Member
Yet they don't. The judicial system can only impose the sentence as described by state or federal law. No taxpayer wants to see prisons built when he has potholes in his street.
So......give the felon ANOTHER chance?
Nope.
The_Quartermaster
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I argue knowing fully well that nothing I say here will change anyone's POV, nor am I out to try such a thing. However, I do disagree with so many of you about automatically giving them all of their rights back with no exceptions once "time" has been served. You prey on your fellow Americans, then you chose to not deserve them back, IMO. But with that same token, I am not above a small segment who killed without any malicious intent, such as shooting a thief running away and no longer being a threat and found guilty as one such example.
Anyhow, my opinion is my own and honestly nothing will change it nor would as I said before, anything said in here would ever likely change the current set of laws we have now, so don't bother with me as the status quo won't be changing because this is a subject that I am fixed and firm with. So if you or anyone else disagrees, well that's your right to, but it still doesn't trump my own feelings about it just like my opinion doesn't trump your own as well in that regard.
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Old Dog
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@Madcap_Magician - excellent post.
Probably too long for some here to read and hold their attention.
Some don't understand that simply by virtue of being released from incarceration, a convicted felon's "debt to society" has not been paid. Most still have lengthy periods of supervision (parole, or in my state, "community custody") or work release, as well as frequent drug-testing, but also significant, paying off one's LFOs -- legal financial obligations, including restitution to victims. Few are released from prisons with no restrictions or monitoring. That's all part of the process. Some here have ably made the point that most prison releases are not because the individual is deemed rehabilitated, reformed or capable of functioning henceforth as a law-abiding citizen in society.
Wishful thinking, I know, but if some here would brush up on their philosophy (and history -- Locke, Hobbes and Rousseau had great influence on our founding fathers) and also try to understand the other pesky parts of the Bill of Rights, such as due process.
Probably too long for some here to read and hold their attention.
Some don't understand that simply by virtue of being released from incarceration, a convicted felon's "debt to society" has not been paid. Most still have lengthy periods of supervision (parole, or in my state, "community custody") or work release, as well as frequent drug-testing, but also significant, paying off one's LFOs -- legal financial obligations, including restitution to victims. Few are released from prisons with no restrictions or monitoring. That's all part of the process. Some here have ably made the point that most prison releases are not because the individual is deemed rehabilitated, reformed or capable of functioning henceforth as a law-abiding citizen in society.
Yep. All part of the social contract. Part of living under the umbrella of a benevolent (in theory) government is implicit consent to abide by all laws and accept the consequences of violating any laws.
Wishful thinking, I know, but if some here would brush up on their philosophy (and history -- Locke, Hobbes and Rousseau had great influence on our founding fathers) and also try to understand the other pesky parts of the Bill of Rights, such as due process.
ColoradoMinuteMan
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What you actually are missing in the argument is that myself and others with similar positions are actually harder on and more restrictive than those with the opposing position. I see your point of view as: "continue to let potentially dangerous criminals out of jail and hope that they will obey the firearms laws while performing their future crimes." Whereas my point of view is: "leave them in jail unless they have undergone a clear transformation that makes it unlikely they will commit violence in the future. When reformed criminals exit jail and demonstrate they can be trusted, give them their rights back."
theotherwaldo
Member
Historically, those that were arrested after committing truly heinous crimes were very unlikely to return to the streets.
Allowing heinous ex-convicts to be legally armed was not too big a concern in those times,,, ,
Allowing heinous ex-convicts to be legally armed was not too big a concern in those times,,, ,
ColoradoMinuteMan
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The entire discussion is in regards to judicial and legislative changes. That's the point. In my opinion, if you had more restrictive sentencing and parole processes you could have a more effective process for retaining dangerous criminals while restoring the rights of reformed former inmates.
Old Dog
Member
Not legally or fiscally possible, not practical nor realistic.
In those times, far fewer restrictions on law-abiding citizens' right to bear arms, so the playing field was a bit more level. Not so much in these times...
dogtown tom
Member
Yet thats not the topic of the thread.
And read post#53
Dream on. I don't want persons convicted of felonies against their fellow Americans to have any input on public policy. They didn't get sent to prison for throwing a banana peel on the sidewalk. State laws recognize "youthful indiscretions" and offenses that occurred as a juvenile, even the most heinous. So we are talking about grown adults, knowingly choosing to commit a felony. I'm sorry, but they forfeited their right to live among the rest of us by not following the law.
If felons are sooooooo adamant about their Second Amendment rights there is this one weird trick to keeping that right.................STOP BREAKING THE LAW!!!!
ColoradoMinuteMan
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Yet thats not the topic of the thread.
And read post#53
Dream on. I don't want persons convicted of felonies against their fellow Americans to have any input on public policy. They didn't get sent to prison for throwing a banana peel on the sidewalk. State laws recognize "youthful indiscretions" and offenses that occurred as a juvenile, even the most heinous. So we are talking about grown adults, knowingly choosing to commit a felony. I'm sorry, but they forfeited their right to live among the rest of us by not following the law.
If felons are sooooooo adamant about their Second Amendment rights there is this one weird trick to keeping that right.................STOP BREAKING THE LAW!!!!
The subject of the thread is "Case: Should Felons be allowed to own firearms?" Is it just a yees or no question? If the answer is "yes," then the response to that requires judicial or legislative changes, since the status quo is that they won't get their rights back without a significant effort and circumstances. Please tell me specifically how discussing one of the potential answers to the topic question violates post 53.
I people of your opinion are sooooooo adamant that violent felons are likely to break the law and reoffend, then why do you think a law saying they can't own a firearm will stop them from again breaking the law and why are you sooooooo adamant that these potentially violent people be let out of prison?
ColoradoMinuteMan
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It is absolutely "legally" possible. You can evolve, through legislation, more restrictive laws. It is only fiscally possible due to the huge population of criminals serving time. There are many times throughout history in which we have had significantly less of our population incarcerated, and in part it was due to the fact that we had a more moral society in which punishment was much more of a debutant than it is now. I will agree that if there were much fewer restrictions on law abiding citizens carrying and using firearms in their defense, that the problem in many cases would simply take care of itself.
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