should ex felons be restricted

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cheese_head

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should ex felons be restricted from owning guns once they have paid there debt to society?
are ex felons family members also prohibited from RKBA?
 
In the good ol' days they weren't.

If they are too dangerous to be outside a prison with a gun, then they are too dangerous to be outside of prison with a butter knife, or a car. Guns are easy to get, even in island nations such as England.

I have heard that if a felon lives in a house where there is a gun, that gun must not be accessible to the felon (lock and key, etc). Don't quote me.

Rick
 
should ex felons be restricted from owning guns once they have paid there debt to society?
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It depends on the felony. Someone convicted of a non violent offense (tax fraud, theft, violating some environmental crime, drug possession, etc) shouldn't have the right removed. Of course, I would also argue that those shouldn't be criminal actions either but treated differently.

People convicted of violent crime in the first degree - murder, rape, kidnapping, arson - should lose the right. Of course, they shouldn't see the light of day again either, but thats another discussion.

As for people convicted in the second degree (and beyond) it depends on the circumstances.

However, in call cases, the loss of the right should be a clear part of the punishment, included in the sentencing report at the time of conviction. If should not be applied retroactivly. I feel the same way about registering pedophiles and sex offendors. Include the registration as a term of conviction and I've got no problem with it. However, it strikes me as particularly unfair (and lacking sufficient moral foundation) to pass a law after a crime was convicted that requires the criminal to undergo additional punishment.

are ex felons family members also prohibited from RKBA?
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Not unless that family member is also a felon. As G. Gordon Liddy likes to point out, his wife has one hell of a gun collection.
 
Short answer is no. If they are still dangerous why are they out of prison? Restricting full exercise of rights, not just RKBA, for some period to prove the felon is re-habilitated is reasonable. The period is debatable. I think 5 yrs for non-violent crimes and 10 yrs for violent crimes is about right but could be persuaded otherwise.

are ex felons family members also prohibited from RKBA?
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Not directly, but a firearm in the house with a felon is setting them up for more time in Club Fed. It will be pretty easy for a prosecutor to make the case against the felon, along with a strawman charge against the significant other.
 
I know I will be well-outnumbered, but I think that it is reasonable to restrict a felon's RKBA even after he has served his term. There is a process by which a felon who keeps his nose clean can have his civil rights fully restored, and it is foolish not to recognize that many felons are career criminals who can't be trusted with firearms.

Tim
 
it's my understanding you can go through the court and spend a couple grand on lawyers after 7 years and get most felonies removed from your record to restore your "right" (or get a job or whatever else you need to do that requires you to not be a felon)
 
Should they be?
IMHO: No. Once someone has repaid their debt to society all rights should be restored. If someone is too dangerous to society to possess a gun, should they really be out of prison?


I believe the felony conviction prevents them from being 'in possesion' of a weapon. In the same room or car as an unsecured weapon would probably be considered 'in possesion'.
 
in wisconsin

a felon needs to get a govenors pardon
and an unsecured firearm in a house even without the felons knowledge is constructive possession
a man can get 15 years for a unsecured bullet here with or without there knowledge
 
a felon needs to get a govenors pardon
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Nope. I have a friend who had a felony drunk driving conviction about 10 years ago who just had a hearing before a judge earlier this spring who restored his rights.

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and an unsecured firearm in a house even without the felons knowledge is constructive possession
a man can get 15 years for a unsecured bullet here with or without there knowledge
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Never heard of this. In fact I highly doubt it.
 
constructive possession

if a gun is in the house and the felon knowingly or unkonowingly has access to it. It is deemed constructive possession. It is not necessary to demonstrate intent.

If the guys father has hunting rifles in the house. And they are not locked up. The felon has constructive possession of the firearm.
 
Ouch, if that's true, Wisconsin gives cops a real oppertunity to convict felons that they don't like, simply by dropping a round somewhere in the house, such as in or behind the couch. I really object to people getting convicted for something they don't even know about. How can you be "guilty" in a more traditional sense if you don't even know what's going on?

My opinion is that if they're still dangerous, you shouldn't let them out of prison, however, how can you tell while they're still in prison? That's what parole is for. And all punishments should be part of the original sentence. I think that your rights should be restored once you're off of parole. I kinda object to the "pay thousands of dollars" part to see a judge to get it restored, but I don't object to having a judge take a look at the felon's life at the end of parole to determine if there are any lingering effects. Make it so that the felon can appeal those yearly or so.

Very Very few career criminals are able to get off of parole before commiting another crime. Once it's been determined(three strikes?), lock them up and throw away the key.

And people are right, I'm not concerned about non-violent crime as much as violent crime for this. I'll go so far as to say that there are misdemeanor assults that should have harsher penalties than some of the non-violent felonies.
 
I believe parole should be a part of all releases from prison. Once parole is over, if the person is safe to be released, his rights should be restored. No second class of citizens for me, thank you.

Make them full citizens, or keep 'em under lock and key.

Or kill 'em.
 
if you can't trust him with a gun, how can you trust him out in society. In fact, i believe when they are paroled they should be given a gun, and a key to the parole boards houses.
 
No, they should not be restricted.

An Unalienable Right is an Unalienable Right. Under the Constituion, the state may repress one's rights under 'due process'; a jury of one's peers convict the accused of a crime. Then that person goes to prison where his freedoms are restricted. This is when he "can't have a gun" -in prison. Once the person is released back into society he should have his full rights restored so that he may be a productive citizen. If we can't trust him with a gun, we can't trust him to walk among us.

Think about it. Anyone can go into Home Depot and buy an axe or a chainsaw. If we can't trust a convict with a gun should we trust him to own these items as well?

I am very concerned with the direction out society has gone in the last several decades. We seem to want to punish someone for a crime and keep punishing them (see the thread about the first-time drug offender getting 55 years) without regard to the severity of the crime.

Also, "gun-crime" laws - laws that impose harsher punishments for a crime that involves a gun- simply re-enforces the notion that guns a "evil". In society's mind it is "worse" to murder someone with a gun than to murder someone with a knife. I think we should punish criminals for the actual crime, not the tools he used, or the clothing he wore, or the color of his skin...

Let me put it another way: should we allow ex-cons to marry? If so, doesn't the former convict have a right and DUTY to defend his family?
 
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Reading the discussions of the Second Amendment in the Anti-Federalist papers gives some notions of the ideas of the writers of the Constitution. They're ideas are good enough for me.

Ownership of firearms should not be allowed for "those of unsound mind or ill repute"; apparoximately the wording. Ill repute, I believe, would equate to today's felon.

Before the feds got into the act, Texas was more liberal than the Founding Fathers. A felon could possess a firearm within his home, for self defense. He could not go elsewhere and be armed. Remember, though, that this was in an era when nobody was allowed to carry a pistol except when legally defined as a traveller.

Art
 
it is foolish not to recognize that many felons are career criminals who can't be trusted with firearms.
Click to expand...

If a felon wants a gun, it doesnt matter if it is legal or not... he will find a way to get one.

It is very easy for a felon to get a gun if he wants one. Laws making it illegal for him to possess them do no good.

All he has to do is pick up a newspaper or go to a gunshow, and he can find plenty of people who will unknowingly sell to him.
 
As one on the inside, there are some felons I would not think twice about being right behind me with a loaded firearm. There are many, many more who should never have a staple. Why do we let them out? We don't have any choice - they do thier time, and leave. I have seen them actually have to be Tased to get them out of VCU,(the Hole), to be released. Many have walked out these gates I would rather have seen carried out, but if they do the time, they get out. I believe they should be able to apply to restore thier FULL rights, (as BATFE was defunded to process firearm rights restoration), and posess legally again. My next door neighbor has a stupid kid felony from 25 years ago - he should be restored, as he has a 13 year old daughter and wife to worry about, and is a fine upstanding citizen.
Laws make zero differance to the criminal - I have done informal surveys among our inmate population, and the most I get in referance to gun laws is laughter, and "We love gun control!" One told me he could have a weapon in hand before he was out of sight of Traffic Control, and I believe him.
Could we keep them for life? Sure, if you want to pay for it. $25,000 a year to keep one behind bars here. Personally, and this is my opinion, not of my Dept or anyone else in this state - if they are doing a life sentance, with no possablilty of parole/release, they should be executed. Prison is for rehabilitation or temporary confinement. If they must stay here for ever, and will never be "rehabilitated", there is no use spending the money keeping them here and alive. Again, my opinion, and should not be applied or assumed of any other correctional personell
 
If a felon wants a gun, it doesnt matter if it is legal or not... he will find a way to get one.
Click to expand...
Yeah, if someone is intent on committing murder they will do it anyone, so I guess laws against murder are useless too? :rolleyes:

18USC922 gives society a way of punishing career criminals, if they continue to pose a threat to society.
 
thanks for the links DMF

i dont see a reason to punish people once they have paid there debt to society. im kinda alarmed by all the new laws creating more felonies out of misdemeanors
it just seems to me we are losing more and more freedoms
 
related issue on Fox:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140204,00.html

The gusto with which Congress passes laws also does significant damage to civil liberties. Author Gene Healy writes in the introduction to the new book, Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything, that in 1998, the American Bar Association assembled a task force charged with compiling a complete list of federal crimes. The panel concluded that a complete list was nearly impossible to assemble, given that the approximately 4,000 federal laws were interwoven between regulatory law, judge-made law, and the 27,000 pages of the US. Code.

"[Even] teams of legal researchers — let alone ordinary citizens — cannot reliably ascertain what federal law prohibits," Healy writes.
Click to expand...
 
i would like to apologise

for starting this thread
there is a lot of opinon on this all over the high road
thanks for all your views
i dont feel like a freak now for thinking the way i did
in the real world (as opposed to here) people freak out when you say restoration of rights for felons i guess everyone believes in freedom except when it doesnt concern them
 
Cheese_Head - you don't have to apologize. This was a good topic, and the debate pretty civil (I've seen a lot worse). Besides, a good heated debate is necessary for the Republic.

"Evil prevails when good men remain silent" - Edmund Burke
 
Just because felons have served time in prison, it does not mean that they have paid their debt to society. There are additional punitive rammifications. As a result of the felony, they also lose their rights to gun ownership and voting.

This was the law when the felony was committed and so by committing the felony, they are essentially volunteering to give up those right as they committed the felony voluntarily or out of some for of negligence such as vehicular homicide.
 
another way to look at it

in wisconsin
in the 90s
if your drivers license was revoked
first offense was longer revocation
2nd offense was 5 years revocation
ad nauseum
what happened was people living in the rural areas (not served by busses)
kept getting caught
3rd fouth and 5th offenses could get you 2 years in the county jail
well the jails filled up with "criminals" driving without a license and they actually relaxed the penalties a little
felonies
DAs' were/are still judged by how many felony convictions they produce
so if some one did something they angled for the felony charge
the proverbial stealing hub caps became:
theft trespassing criminal damage to property and possesion of burglary tools
the concept of constructive possession came in vogue
if you had a party and some one brought drugs whether you knew it or not you now possessed drugs
when people think of felony they think of homicide kidnapping etc.
at least this state isnt florida with the denial of votes thing
there is no restoration of rights in wisconsin
the only way to get rights restored is thru a govenors pardon
govenors dont like pardoning people for past transgressions cause it is political suicide
there are a lot less hunters now because the DNR database cross checks the NCIC for felonies
of course that didnt stop chai vang shooting 8 people but that is beside the point
any ways its bed time nite all
 
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