Courts Strikes Down Ban on Guns for Felony Indictment

MaverickNH

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The nature of grand jury proceedings [which are the ways that an indictment is obtained in the federal system -EV] is one such area that casts a shadow of constitutional doubt on § 922(n). Some feel that a grand jury could indict a [burrito] if asked to do so. [That appears to be a Texification of a New York Chief Judge's famous quote involving a "ham sandwich." -EV] The freewheeling nature of such proceedings stems from the Supreme Court holding that (1) the rules of evidence don't apply, (2) evidence barred by the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule may be heard, and (3) the grand jury may rely on evidence obtained in violation of a defendant's Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Simply put, "[a] grand jury investigation is not an adversarial process."

Texas has no Red Flag Law where one typically need not be present in any hearing to defend oneself prior to a gun seizure order being issued.
 

But the 3rd Circuit Court (Pa, NJ, DE, VI) said, “No guns for you” for a false statement on a welfare application and subsequent misdemeanor conviction with a maximum sentence of >1yr.

The decision in Range is highly consequential because it represents the first major federal appellate decision applying Bruen since that case was decided nearly five months ago.

But it’s anti-gun courts doing what they do to snub Bruen.

Their historical analogies:

1. English prohibition on guns for Catholics
2. US Colonial disarmament of Catholics
3. RevWar disarmament of British Loyalists
4. Dissent of the Minority at PA’s ratifying convention
5. Colonial seizures of guns for hunting offenses

Wow - maybe next they’ll try try using slave-state laws to provide historical analogies against interracial marriage…

The Third Circuit panel embraced a civic theory of the scope of the Second Amendment, affirming the district court’s decision at “step one” of the Bruen analysis because “individuals like Range, who commit felonies and felony-equivalent offenses, are not part of the ‘people’ whom the Second Amendment protects.” Alternatively, the panel found that historical laws disarming non-dangerous individuals due to perceived disloyalty or for breaking the “social compact,” in ways not necessarily tied to any assessment of dangerousness, established a historical tradition of analogous regulation… The panel noted that laws disarming individuals for religious and political reasons are “repugnant” and unconstitutional, but nevertheless “demonstrate legislatures had the power and discretion to use status as a basis for disarmament, and to show that status-based bans did not historically distinguish between violent and non-violent members of disarmed groups.”
 
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