In the first legal ruling of its type, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati on Thursday deemed unconstitutional a federal law that kept a Michigan man who was briefly committed to a mental institution decades ago from owning a gun.
A three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the federal ban on gun ownership for anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution” violated the Second Amendment rights of Clifford Charles Tyler, a 73-year-old Hillsdale County man.
“The government’s interest in keeping firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill is not sufficiently related to depriving the mentally healthy, who had a distant episode of commitment, of their constitutional rights,” wrote Judge Danny Boggs, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, for the panel.
Lucas McCarthy, Mr. Tyler’s lawyer, called the ruling “a forceful decision to protect Second Amendment rights,” and said he hoped it that it would have “a significant impact on the jurisprudence in the area of gun rights.”
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-app...939537?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird
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He was committed for emotional problems after a divorce and was in a facility for less than 1 month.
The law says you can apply for "relief from disabilities" if you were committed.
Ohio had no funding for that feature.
He will get his gun now.
A three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the federal ban on gun ownership for anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective or who has been committed to a mental institution” violated the Second Amendment rights of Clifford Charles Tyler, a 73-year-old Hillsdale County man.
“The government’s interest in keeping firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill is not sufficiently related to depriving the mentally healthy, who had a distant episode of commitment, of their constitutional rights,” wrote Judge Danny Boggs, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, for the panel.
Lucas McCarthy, Mr. Tyler’s lawyer, called the ruling “a forceful decision to protect Second Amendment rights,” and said he hoped it that it would have “a significant impact on the jurisprudence in the area of gun rights.”
continues...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-app...939537?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird
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He was committed for emotional problems after a divorce and was in a facility for less than 1 month.
The law says you can apply for "relief from disabilities" if you were committed.
Ohio had no funding for that feature.
He will get his gun now.
![[laugh]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/012.gif "Laugh [laugh]")
