Notable new Alaska appellate decision on denying gun rights to non-violent felons

Thanks to this post at Volokh, I learned of an interesting new Alaska Court of Appeals decision in Wilson v. Alaska (available here) addressing whether nonviolent felons have any rights under the state's Constitution.  Here are basic parts of the opinion for the court:

The thrust of Wilson’s argument is that the statute prohibiting a felon from possessing a concealable firearm violates article I, section 19 of the Alaska Constitution because it does not differentiate between violent and non-violent felons, and thus is not narrowly tailored to achieve the State’s compelling interest in preventing violent crime. Wilson argues that article I, section 19 guarantees an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, and therefore any law that restricts that right must be narrowly tailored to protect a compelling government interest.

Wilson points out that he was convicted of a non-violent, class C felony — theft in the second degree — for fraudulently obtaining unemployment benefits. He states that he is a sixty-seven-year-old man who lives in a cabin on a homestead, lives a subsistence lifestyle, and needs a handgun for personal protection. He argues that the State cannot justify restricting his constitutional right to possess a concealable firearm....

[U]nder our prior cases, we have rejected the constitutional challenge that Wilson now brings. Furthermore, other states have consistently rejected similar constitutional challenges.  We accordingly conclude that Judge Wolverton did not err in denying Wilson’s motion to dismiss.

The separate opinions that accompany this somewhat analysis talk through this interesting issue in a lot more detail.

Some related Second Amendment posts:

• Interesting report on a Heller argument in the Seventh Circuit
• District Court rejects Second Amendment claim from misdemeanant
• Another (too?) brief opinion rejecting misdemeanant's Second Amendment claim
• SCOTUS undercuts constitutional gun rights in Hayes without even mentioning Heller or Second Amendment
• Even the Chief and Justice Scalia are content to damn gun possession with faint praise
• Given Hayes, can jurisdictions criminalize gun possession by any misdemeanant?
• Justice Scalia sells out felon gun rights, but on what basis exactly?
• The lack of originalist justification for excluding felons from the Second Amendment
• Assailing the unjustified Second Amendment limits in Heller
• "Why Can’t Martha Stewart Have a Gun?"
• What might 2009 have in store for . . . Second Amendment jurisprudence?