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June 23, 2022
Are all broad felon-in-possession criminal gun statutes now constitutionally suspect after Bruen?
I am still working my way through the Supreme Court's various opinions in today's big Second Amendment case, Bruen (basics here). And, because I am not a Second Amendment expert, my first-cut reactions to Bruen may not be worth much. But, since the majority opinion in Bruen seems to reject lots of recent lower court rulings regarding the application of the Second Amendment, I cannot help but start wondering now if all broad felon-in-possession criminal statutes are constitutionally suspect.
Lower courts have largely upheld felon-in-possession criminal prohibitions even since Heller decided the Second Amendment provided for an individual right. But I read Part II of the Court's opinion in Bruen as rejecting much lower-court jurisprudence since Heller and creating a new textual and historical approach for the consideration of Second Amendment claims:
In keeping with Heller, we hold that when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest. Rather, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.”...
Heller and McDonald do not support applying means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment context. Instead, the government must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms....
We reiterate that the standard for applying the Second Amendment is as follows: When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.”
American citizens with felony records are surely part of "the people" covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment, and so their conduct in possessing a firearms would seem presumptively protected. Turning then to "the Nation’s historical tradition," I surmise from various academic articles (see here and here; see also here) that only dangerous and violent people, not all felons, were historically disallowed to have firearms. As one of these articles puts it: "there is no historical justification for completely and forever depriving peaceable citizens — even nonviolent felons — of the right to keep and bear arms."
But one need not take an academic's word for this notion that there is not historical tradition for dispossessing all felons. Then-Judge, now Justice Amy Coney Barrett made this point quite effectively when dissenting in Kanter v. Barr, 919 F.3d 437 (7th Cir. 2019). Here is the start of her lengthy dissent in a case upholding application of the federal felon-in-possession ban to a nonviolent felon:
History is consistent with common sense: it demonstrates that legislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns. But that power extends only to people who are dangerous. Founding-era legislatures did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons. Nor have the parties introduced any evidence that founding-era legislatures imposed virtue-based restrictions on the right; such restrictions applied to civic rights like voting and jury service, not to individual rights like the right to possess a gun. In 1791 — and for well more than a century afterward — legislatures disqualified categories of people from the right to bear arms only when they judged that doing so was necessary to protect the public safety.
Notably, the Bruen opinion for the Court makes repeated reference to the petitioners as "law-abiding" individuals. But I am not sure that dicta alone could or should undermine what Second Amendment's plain text and historical tradition now seem to suggest, namely that governments are on very shaky constitutional ground if and whenever they seek to criminalize gun possession by nonviolent (or "non-dangerous") persons with criminal records.
June 23, 2022 at 12:56 PM | Permalink
Comments
Doug --
You are a positive genius at finding some way to turn a disaster for liberals into a big victory that others are inexplicably missing. Do you have an actual evidence that the present Court is going to ditch Scalia's Heller dictum? Prohibiting felons as a class from gun possession has a long, long historical pedigree, and that all the majority is demanding.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 23, 2022 3:22:12 PM
I am wondering how much weight to put on the Justice Kavanaugh concurrence. It appears that, for now, at least he and the Chief Justice are still agreeing the the Scalia dicta from Heller about what types of "traditional" rules will be followed including laws related to felons in possession and the ability to bar dangerous and unusual weapons (like machine guns).
For proposed gun control reforms, the issue will become what is sufficiently dangerous and unusual to fit within that tradition -- high capacity magazines for example.
The concurrence also seems to permit licensing/permit schemes as long as they are an objective test with qualifications that the average person can meet. Does that mean that the government could require a training/gun safety course before a person can buy a handgun?
Posted by: tmm | Jun 23, 2022 3:53:30 PM
Bill, have you read then-Judge Barrett's opinion in Kanter or any of the academic sources I cited? Neither the text of the Second Amendment nor historical traditions support a broad felon exception to the Second Amendment. I will reprint some of the history reviewed by the Duke Center for Firearm Law, which I believe maintains a fairly comprehensive repository of gun laws:
"[T]here are laws from the Revolutionary War that disarmed persons who failed to take an oath of loyalty. There are also laws in the Repository preceding that time that prohibited the sale to Native Americans 'in order to prevent such dangers of isolated murders and assassinations' and because such sale was 'very poisonous and destructive to the English.'
"However, there is not a law that explicitly addresses taking weapons from a person who has been convicted of a crime in the Repository until 1885. That law came out of Florida, and it authorized sheriffs and other officers making an arrest to 'take possession of any arms found upon the person arrested under this act.' Law enforcement officials were then to retain the weapons until after the trial of the person arrested, and if the person was convicted then his arms were forfeited. Only the arms that were on the person are covered by the law. The statute does not reference any other arms that the person convicted possessed or may later purchase, and thus seems to only cover those weapons that were on their person at the time of arrest.
"Laws that ban possession of some firearms by felons begin to pop up in the Repository in 1914.... These are the same laws that were already referenced in our first blog post in this series out of North Dakota, California, Nevada and Oregon, which banned possession of certain weapons capable of being concealed by aliens and felons (among others in some). As mentioned in that post, the statute adopted in all four states is vastly similar in phrasing and effect. All of these statutes refer to a person who has been convicted of a felony as opposed to a person who has been convicted of a crime of violence.
"There is currently only one law on the Repository that completely bans possession of all firearms by felons (not just those capable of being concealed). It was enacted by Rhode Island in 1927, and only concerns those who have been convicted of a crime of violence."
In other words, at the time the Second Amendment was ratified AND at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, broad felon dispossession statutes were entirely unknown to American history. You and perhaps many other think such modern laws --- such as the broad federal felon-in-possession law subjecting violators to up to 10 years in prison (or a mandatory minimum of 15 years if they have the wrong criminal history) --- make for really good policy. But the Supreme Court makes clear today the Second Amendment is not to be applied based on your or my view of good gun policy. It is to be applied based on text and history.
And, to repeat, neither the text of the Second Amendment nor the history of English or American gun laws prior to the 20th Century provides any support for a broad felon ban. Justice Barrett clearly gets that, and I suspect she is not the only one in the current majority willing to be consistent with textualism and originalism here. Whether there are five true textual/originalists on the Court on this issue (or in lower federal courts), though, is another question that is sure to be explored a whole lot in the coming weeks and months and years --- on average, 150 people are sentenced every weekday on FIP convictions in federal courts (though I suspect many of these folks would qualify as "dangerous" so that history/tradition might support their dispossession).
Posted by: Doug B. | Jun 23, 2022 4:08:10 PM
Doug --
Two quick questions: Do you know how many times over the last few years cert petitions have presented the question whether FIP laws cut too broad a swath under the Second Amendment and therefore cannot stand? And do you know how many times the Court has granted such a petition (much less decided on the merits in favor of your position)?
I don't know the answer to the first question. The answer to the second question is zero. Which five votes are you getting for your stance here? I can give you five votes against it right now: Roberts, Kavanaugh (if not assassinated per Senator Schumer), Kagan, Sotomayor and Breyer. I think a sixth, Alito, is also highly likely.
P.S. I met Justice Barrett a few weeks ago at one of my fancy-schmancy Georgetown parties. Why didn't I get to practice before judges who look like that?
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 23, 2022 6:03:37 PM
Whatever the answers to your discussions, and the absurd decisions of the Supreme Court to restrict the right to exercise gun control in the US, the one certainty is that more children and innocents will likely lose their lives after today. I thought the mantra of conservatives was the "right to life". Who really believes your children are going to be or feel safer tomorrow? The Supreme Court has a very warped idea of what constitutes Justice.
Posted by: peter | Jun 23, 2022 6:23:05 PM
I totally disagree with Barrett's originalist interpretation of the 2nd Amendment and find her analysis off center. However, if this opinion opens the door to (non-violent) felons retaining the right to possess firearms, then it strikes down most, if not all, statutes prohibiting felons from possessing firearms. This opinion, while lauded by gun nuts, may produce the unintended effect of allowing convicted felons to possess guns. Fewer people will be sentenced to prison and folks already serving time on FIP charges may see their sentences reduced. I disagree with originalism, but this could see a positive consequence for criminal defendants.
Posted by: anon | Jun 23, 2022 6:43:10 PM
Bill, two quick answers:
1. Denials of cert do not make constitutional law, Supreme Court rulings do. Today's Supreme Court decision provides that, for a restriction of gun possession to be constitutional, "the government must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms." Until the 20th Century, there was absolutely no historical tradition that persons with nonviolent convictions were excluded from Second Amendment protections.
2. It could be years before Bruen's application to federal FIP cased get to the Court. Notably, the current Supreme Court has only 4 of the 9 Justices who were on the Court when Heller was decided (and one of those four will be gone in two weeks). Even with the current Justices, if the case were to involve, say, Martha Stewart who took possession of a gun in order to protect herself from a violent threat, who knows. More important for now is what lower court federal judges, who are duty bound to apply Bruen's new constitutional test, might have to say on this issue. If they faithful comply with their duty to only uphold gun restricts that are "consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation," they ought to have deep concerns with broad application of the federal firearm law criminalizing possession by nonviolent felons.
My question back: Do you dispute my assertion that neither the text of the Second Amendment nor the history of English or American gun laws prior to the 20th Century provides any support for a broad felon ban? If text and history are what matters, they both point in one direction here, no?
Posted by: Doug B. | Jun 23, 2022 7:22:05 PM
Doug --
Look at the Kavanaugh (with Roberts) concurrence. It's crystal clear from that that the FIP ban will survive. You take those two and add them to the three dissenting liberals (who would curtail gun rights much more than either of us, or the Court majority), and you get five. End of story. Supreme Court cases are not won with debating points on blogs. They are won with five votes. FIP bans have them and Martha Stewart doesn't.
I swear, it's always the same thing. Your side never, ever loses no matter what the opinions say!!! When you bomb out on qualified immunity, it's really a disguised announcement of the seeds of tomorrow's victory. When you bomb out on capital punishment, same deal. When you bomb out on acquitted conduct, ditto.
Blogs are neat and I like them, obviously. But law gets made in court. That's where I practiced for about a quarter of a century. I know what wins and what loses, and FIP is here to stay.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 23, 2022 10:06:42 PM
Bill, I sincerely do not think the Constitution and the interpretation and applications of the rights it protects is about "sides." That you apparently do, and talk about these important issues in this partisan way, makes it so very clear that for you this is all really just about personal policy preferences, and not about fidelity to the rule of law. That's fine, but just own up to the fact that you just want judges to bless your policy preference and do not actually care at all about fidelity to the text or history of the Constitution.
Tellingly, you have not answered this fundamental question: Does either the text of the Second Amendment or the history of English or American gun laws prior to the 20th Century provide any support for a broad felon ban?
You have claimed elsewhere that constitutional interpretation should be focused on the text and original meaning, and you have criticized judges and Justices who do not focus on the text and constitutional history. This serves as a useful opportunity to help me understand what you really mean. As I read the text and understand the history, there is no constitutional foundation for a broad felon ban as an exception to the Second Amendment. Does text and history matter to you in this setting? Should it matter to judges and Justices? Or do those things only matter when they fit your policy views and are simply to be ignored when you do not like the policy consequences? Plenty of reasonable people ignore constitutional text and history when they do not produce a preferred policy outcome -- including perhaps the Chief and Justice Kavanaugh. But I am just seeking to determine if are among those for whom constitutional interpretation, when it gets hard, is about policy preferences and not about text and history.
Posted by: Doug B. | Jun 23, 2022 10:53:24 PM
Peter,
The constitution does not care about your “feelings.” SCOTUS should not either. They are not a “superlegislature” of unelected people in robes. They should not make policy, as the liberals on the court believe.
A law can be 100% great and 100% unconstitutional. Likewise, it can be 100% awful, and 100% constitutional. It’s not the court’s job to decide based on good or awful policy preferences.
Posted by: Peter | Jun 23, 2022 11:07:09 PM
My apologies. The above post had “Peter” in the name of the poster. It was a response to Peter.
Posted by: TarlsQtr | Jun 23, 2022 11:08:42 PM
Doug --
So now you're more of an originalist than Nino Scalia, the author of the famous FIP approval passage in Heller?? Well that's rich! Where is your originalist criticism of Miranda for making up out of thin air mandatory police warnings that appear nowhere, and are not even hinted at, in the text of the Constitution? No, really, where is your criticism of that?
It doesn't exist so far as I've seen. And the reason it doesn't exist is that you are less driven by originalism than by whatever interpretive hook will help the criminal get back on the street earlier. It's only a small exaggeration to say that you've devoted your very noteworthy career to that end. Your originalism, such as it occasionally may be, seems merely to be ad hoc interpretive "flexibility" wearing a fig leaf.
You support a bunch of positions that have lost in court for decades, like opposition to qualified immunity, prohibition on the use of acquitted conduct, bans on FIP penalties, and bans on appeal waivers. But after years and years of failing to persuade judges of all parties and ideologies, you portray yourself as the champion of law, while I'm a mere ideologue.
Ummmmmmmmm, I don't think so. And I've got a long -- and if I don't say so, successful -- record in federal appellate litigation to prove it.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 23, 2022 11:53:57 PM
Bill,
Sorry, but I have to agree with the Professor here. Actually, I have even more problems with the machine gun restrictions than I do the felon-in-possession ban (which has now expanded far past that basis anyway). They simply have no history that predates ratification of even the 14th amendment (the latest date I believe appropriate for such historical inquiry).
Posted by: Soronel Haetir | Jun 24, 2022 12:43:06 AM
TarisQtr - the Constitution was written and signed by good men in 1787 of integrity, with passion and feeling for their country and countrymen. It was practical, moral and acceptably authoritative for its time and gave a foundation for the future stabilization and future for the federal state. But the law created in 1787 was never intended to enslave future lawkeepers and lawmakers from adapting it to meet future needs and progress. The Supreme Court, whether its current membership or their supporters like it or not, earns its respect from the publicly perceived primary role as final arbiter of Justice. If all it becomes is the librarian of a dusty scrap of paper from 1787, its public credibility and hard earned respect will quickly fritter away. Justice is not served well by that. Belatedly, it looks like Congress may be beginning to understand that.
Posted by: peter | Jun 24, 2022 2:35:54 AM
I'm glad to hear there's a chance at overturning such absurd restrictions. I was falsely convicted of a non-violent crime 44 years ago. I was never accused of any crime of violence. My record is perfectly clear before and since. So I'm quite offended when people say that the way to prevent mass shootings is to further crack down on people like me, and I think that those people have taken complete leave of their senses. If universal access to guns was the cause of mass shootings, Switzerland would have lots of them.
What next, a mandatory five year prison sentence for possession of a car by someone who was falsely ticketed for riding a bicycle too fast half a century ago?
Posted by: Keith Lynch | Jun 24, 2022 7:07:53 AM
One thing should be clear from the opinions is that it is now open season for judicial activism in Second Amendment cases. The question for judges is now what weapons from the 1780s and 1860s are the equivalent to today's weapons. That is ultimately a matter of opinion rather than fact or law. I can make an argument that the main weapons in both eras had to be reloaded for each shot. While revolvers existed, the Colt .45 revolver only dates back to the 1870s after the fourteenth amendment. So a plausible argument can be made that neither framing generation intended the right to bear arms to cover semiautomatic weapons. On the other hand, the majority seems to feel that semiautomatics are the modern day equivalent of the musket and other common weapons of the time. But it will always be what judges feel are the equivalent weapons because modern weapons are simply not the equivalent of the old weapons. Guns evolve all the time and with each evolution (and attempts to legislate against the evolution), judges will have to decide whether the change to the weapon is legally significant.
Posted by: tmm | Jun 24, 2022 8:58:47 AM
Bill, you continue to talk about various topics without addressing a seemingly critical question after Bruen's account of how the Second Amendment is to be interpreted: Does either the text of the Second Amendment or the history of English or American gun laws prior to the 20th Century provide any support for a broad felon ban?
I am hoping you can answer that question without going on tangents about Miranda or your record inventing waivers for plea agreements. I do not claim to be an originalist; I think of myself as a legal process textualist (which does make me a critic of Miranda, but that's another conversation). By the same token, I do not assail persons who do claim to be originalists or who adopt other interpretive methodologies in good faith, I am just eager to better understand what various approaches to the Constitution might mean in various settings.
In contrast, Bill, you have claimed to be a textual and an originalist and you have often criticized judges and Justices (including our newest Justice) who do not show fidelity to these interpretive methodologies. Perhaps you want to say "flexibility" is needed in the context of the Second Amendment because, as we all know, guns in the wrong hands can be very dangerous. That's what I am trying to explore here: if, after Bruen's account of the Second Amendment, text and history really will be key or will courts continue to be guided by notions of sound gun policies.
I presume, Bill, that you think broad felon bans on gun possession make for good policy. But that is not what Bruen says really matters, and so I will ask again for your view on what seems to be a key question after Bruen: Does either the text of the Second Amendment or the history of English or American gun laws prior to the 20th Century provide any support for a broad felon ban?
Can you answer that question and/or explain why it should not be a concern for courts and others after Bruen?
Posted by: Doug B. | Jun 24, 2022 9:38:14 AM
Why was Johnny Cash a deputy sheriff ?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/johnny-cash-deputy-card-found-nashville-sheriff-reveals-music-icon-became-a-deputy-in-1979/
Because back then there were no carry permits.. Now we can all have a gun in public.. I do think the convicted felon will not fall into the 2nd Amendment
Posted by: david raybin | Jun 24, 2022 10:57:59 AM
Peter,
Interesting that you mention “enslave future law keepers and lawmakers.” I’m not trying to change the subject but I believe it is relevant. What is your position on Dobbs?
Also, what does the phrase, “Congress shall make no law…” mean?
Posted by: TarlsQtr | Jun 24, 2022 11:13:50 AM
Doug --
Donald Trump was just as sure he was right about the election as you're sure you're right about felon in possession. But although I voted for Trump, I concluded publicly (https://ringsideatthereckoning.substack.com/p/why-the-jan-6-hearings-are-doing) that Trump is unfit for Office because he will not follow the law. I have exactly the same thinking about FIP bans. You must follow the law regardless of how sure you are it's wrong and that a better reading of the Constitution would vindicate you. That is what citizenship means.
The law, as uniformly announced in the circuits and in Heller (and Bruen properly read for that matter) is that FIP bans are legal. As I've already explained, given the Kavanaugh/Roberts concurrence, it's absolutely clear that the such bans are still legal and have five votes minimum.
If you think I'm wrong, you have a remedy: GO. WIN. YOUR. CASE.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 24, 2022 11:49:55 AM
Again, Bill, can you address the question that the Supreme Court's opinion in Bruen, while rejecting lower court jurisprudence that you cite, makes the Second Amendment's touchstone: Does either the text of the Second Amendment or the history of English or American gun laws prior to the 20th Century provide any support for a broad felon ban?
I am sincerely interested in your answer to this question. Your answer, either way, is not going to lead me to incite a bunch of people with felony records to storm the Capitol. I am eager to understand whether those who claim to be textualist and originalist )and criticize others for failure to show fidelity to these interpretive methods) will be faithful to these principles in this context. Or, as seems likely, jurists may prove inclined to look for "flexibility" here because they favor on policy grounds certain gun control laws that seem inconsistent with the text and history of the Second Amendment.
I do not dispute that the Kavanaugh/Roberts concurrence suggests that these Justices may be eager to adopt a more "flexible" approach to the Second Amendment even in the face what the text and history of the Second Amendment indicate. I surmise you do, too. That's fine, but I think it useful for all of us to understand just when and how policy preferences can and will impact supposed commitments to the text and history of the Constitution in this context (and others).
Posted by: Doug Berman | Jun 24, 2022 12:52:44 PM
TarlsQtr- Dobbs is a huge mistake. Roe was one of those standout achievements that gave recognition to the right of women to exercise control of their own health and bodies. There is nothing more fundamental than that in terms of human rights. Dobbs demonstrates yet again that the Supreme Court has been hijacked by political interests and is no longer independently protecting the interests of individuals or Justice. "Congress shall make no law ..." refers, as I'm sure you already know, to the protection of the right of free speech and of the right to petition government for change. Congress can and should otherwise make federal law in the interests of good governance, national security, and for the benefit of society. It's time it got on with that and broke the wretched political stalemate that the Supreme Court is currently trying to take advantage of. Indeed, Congress has the power to amend the Constitution and has done so on multiple occasions in the past. It can also change the composition of the Supreme Court if current members overreach themselves as they currently are doing. Whilst a dramatic reaction to the Courts position on gun law and Dobbs, if Congress were serious about returning the Court to a truly balanced independent body, it in theory could do so. Of course, with the current impasse in Congress, it won't happen any time soon.
Posted by: peter | Jun 24, 2022 2:21:09 PM
Re: the weapons of 1791. Anyone who thinks the Second Amendment only applies to weapons that existed when the amendment was ratified in 1791 must logically also think that the First Amendment doesn't apply to anything said via telephone, radio, television, movies, or the Internet. Or to anything printed in newspapers, magazines, books, petitions, or protest signs unless they used printing presses of the type that existed in 1791. Or to freedom of religions that didn't exist in 1791, such as Mormonism. Did you write on your protest sign with a quill pen or with a Magic Marker? If the latter, go straight to jail.
Posted by: Keith Lynch | Jun 24, 2022 7:34:09 PM
Doug --
I think the Second Amendment means just what it says. But I agree with (I'm trembling as I type this) Joe Biden when he insists it's not absolute. Not that this is any big insight. The First Amendment isn't absolute either (fire in a crowded theater and all that), nor is the Sixth Amendment (you have a right to a lawyer, but if he's not admitted in this state, forget it). To be a full-fledged believer in the Second Amendment as written (or the First or Sixth or any of them), you don't have to be a nutjob. No sane person believes that a five year old has a right to "bear arms" and no sane person believes a lunatic does either. And I don't care whether all that was written down in 1790. There has to be, and there is, a place for basic common sense in the law.
Common sense tells you that dangerous people should not be allowed to have guns. Now it's true that not ALL felons are dangerous people. But it's also true that not all people below 21 will be irresponsible with alcohol. But drawing the line at 21 has been and is close enough for the courts (unless you've seen otherwise -- I haven't), and so is a felony conviction. Poor little Martha Steward will just have to rely on her beefy security detail to protect her. This is not exactly breaking my heart (or hers, truth be told).
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 25, 2022 4:51:12 PM
Again, Bill, can you address the question that the Supreme Court's opinion in Bruen, while rejecting lower court jurisprudence that you cite, makes the Second Amendment's touchstone: Does either the text of the Second Amendment or the history of English or American gun laws prior to the 20th Century provide any support for a broad felon ban?
I will stop asking you this question if you will expressly concede that your repeated failure to address this question is an admission that text of the Second Amendment and our historical traditions do NOT support a broad felon ban. (Your 21-age point on drinking is a legislative line, as you know, NOT an issue on constitutional interpretation.) I am troubled that you keep want to talk about issues other than textualism and originalism, which you have promoted in the past and attacked others for disregarding. The hypocrisy is obvious, but I was hoping you might try to at least address these matters. That you won't even try is so telling, though disappointing. In the end, it seems, constitutional interpretation is fundamentally policy preferences all the way down, I suppose, for you and others. So be it.
Posted by: Doug B. | Jun 25, 2022 5:18:05 PM
Doug --
I have answered your question, just not in the straightjacket terms you demand I use. Having been a courtroom lawyer for many years, I know better than to let my questioner dictate the exact vocabulary I must employ in giving my answer. I would also note that your question, even taken in its own terms, is not the steel trap you seemingly imagine it to be. Your question is: "Does either the text of the Second Amendment or the history of English or American gun laws prior to the 20th Century provide any support for a broad felon ban?" And my answer, which I've already given a couple of different ways, is: Text and history must be and routinely are viewed with normal common sense, as the "yelling fire in a crowded theater" illustrates in First Amendment interpretation; and "prior to the 20th Century" leave about 120 years of history, which is lots.
The reason you'll be losing this issue (as you've all but conceded you'll be losing it) is that there at least five Justices (more if I had to guess) who have normal common sense.
P.S. I find it a little jarring that the ONLY thing that interests you about this case is how CRIMINALS could benefit from it, not how the massively larger number of normal people trying to DEFEND themselves from criminals could benefit. What a very unusual way to see things.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 25, 2022 7:09:10 PM
Bill, you seem to be conceding the text and the history deemed relevant by the Bruen Court do not support your preferred interpretation of the Second Amendment, but “normal common sense” does. So you are embracing the “normal common sense” approach to constitutional interpretation over textualism and originalism. (Justice Breyer may be glad to hear his general approach has more adherents.) I always suspected you (and others) are willing and eager to jettison any principled commitment to textualism and originalism whenever what you think makes "common sense" as a policy preference justifies doing so.
Meanwhile, I am not sure why you find it jarring that I believe those who are truly committed to textualism and originalism should be prepared to extend gun rights to more non-violent people. But with your living "common sense" approach to the Constitution, I guess you are fine with the Second Amendment as a second-class right (though the Bruen Court said that was improper). I look forward to hearing more about whose versions of "normal common sense" policy preferences decide just when to jettison textualism and originalism in constitutional interpretation.
Posted by: Doug B. | Jun 25, 2022 7:59:54 PM
Doug --
-- It was Justice Scalia who wrote the Heller dictum that has you so roiled up (and that a majority of the Court signed onto). Are you more of a textualist than he was? Do tell!
-- I see you just walk past my point that the "shouting fire in a crowded theater" exception is nowhere written down in the First Amendment, but universally recognized as limiting it. And why is it universally so recognized? Because of common sense. Your fury at using common sense as allegedly being interpretive perversion speaks for itself. I hardly need add anything.
-- I trust you'll be just as disconsolate with the Justices who turn down your view of FIP (as you've acknowledged a majority is likely to do) as you are with me. I just hope you won't embrace the Certified Chuck Schumer Method of dealing with them -- and I'm sure you won't, since you're not that kind of person. As to some of your more crackpot commenters.......well..............ummmmmmmmm.............
Posted by: Bill Otis | Jun 26, 2022 2:25:14 PM
I had always heard, Bill, that the Heller dictum was required to get Justice Kennedy's swing vote. I suspect I am more of a textualist than Justice Kennedy, and Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion in Brown v. Plata has always led me to question his textualist bona fides. Scalia said there that sometimes "tradition and common sense ... ought to shape the law, rather than vice versa."
Perhaps Justice Scalia's reference to "common sense" in Plata in an effort to ignore the plain text of the PLRA contributes to my suspicion about using that term to make up non-textual doctrines. I often find that when someone has no valid legal authority for a claim, they just say it is "common sense." But, in operation, a "common sense" approach to constitutional interpretation provides another means to enable judges and Justices to say the law is and must be whatever makes "sense" to them personally based on their policy views. After all, school segregation was "common sense" to many for decades; Justice Holmes in Buck v. Bell reasoned that common sense justified forced sterilization of the "feeble-minded."
And that is all I really mean to highlight here -- namely that many (including the late great Justice Scalia) often can and will find means to smuggle in policy preferences through "common sense" constitutional interpretation.
Posted by: Doug B. | Jun 26, 2022 6:59:02 PM
Mr. Otis said, in reply to Doug, "I find it a little jarring that the ONLY thing that interests you about this case is how CRIMINALS could benefit from it, not how the massively larger number of normal people trying to DEFEND themselves from criminals could benefit."
Someone who had once been convicted of a crime but who has had a perfectly clean record for decades (not counting time spent in prison or otherwise incapacitated) cannot reasonably be called a criminal. They are either reformed, i.e. an ex-criminal, or they were wrongfully convicted, i.e. never a criminal. And in either case, their long-ago conviction doesn't mean they have no possible need to ever defend themself from a criminal. Especially in today's US where if someone is committing murder, and you call the police, they'll quickly arrive and courageously "secure the scene" while the killer goes about his deadly business unmolested.
Posted by: Keith Lynch | Jun 26, 2022 10:45:39 PM
While I understand Professor Berman’s point about the apparent implications of Bruen for the validity of FIP statutes, given the Roberts/Kavanaugh concurrence it doesn’t seem likely that there would be four votes on the Court to grant certiorari on the FIP issue *unless* one of the court of appeals strikes down ACCA and the certiorari petition comes from the Government. But I don’t anticipate that any of the courts of appeals *will* use Bruen to strike down ACCA because Heller, McDonald, and the R/K concurrence in Bruen all seem to make it clear that everyone but Thomas, Gorsuch, and Barrett still consider FIP statutes to fall within the “heartland” of permissible firearm regulation.
It would not be as surprising to me, though, if some court used Bruen to strike down the “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” enhancement provision.
Posted by: JoPaCro | Jun 30, 2022 5:56:05 AM
This is a great resource. I'm a criminal defense attorney in CA with a ton of gun cases, for both felons and non-felons, that can now be attacked. Thank you!
Posted by: Jesse Adams | Aug 18, 2022 5:24:13 PM
Interesting read.
First off I have a non violent no victim ( paperwork as did not renew a license) federal felony.
The rights granted under our constitution do not say as a felon you lose your rights.
Many believe all felons are bad or have committed a violent crime. As a man that had served 19 months 2 years paper. No fines no restitution. This starting back in 2007. I can assure all readers there are many in our prison system that should never be there.
A man or woman should have the opportunity to protect themselves or family with whatever means required.
Many believe that if a felon was to get their rights back they would commit another felony.
I laughed at that. As a 61 year old retired man living on a 40 acre farm. Should I not have the same opportunity to protect my livestock or family they same as the man on the other side of the fence.
A man or woman at 40 is not the same person as at 18.
Yet we hold that person ( only on federal cases not state ) accountable their entire life.
What we need is a more severe sentencing for violence.
And what many do not realize is one thing. This felon you do not want to have a firearm. Well they had them before the conviction. And they did not commit violence using one.
I would like to see a system where after all sentencing has been completed. All rights reinstated.
If a person can not be trusted with a firearm. Why are they released from prison
Posted by: David Raymond | Sep 1, 2022 7:50:59 AM
Federal Court in Texas just ruled someone under felony indictment may purchase firearms, hints at Bruen Ruling allows for Felons to have their 2nd Amendment Rights reinstated. A great victory for The Constitution
Posted by: Fricn Media | Oct 24, 2022 7:09:57 PM
Defense attorney. I not only agree with the author, but have a hard time seeing how even violent ex-felons are able to be denied firearms based solely on "history and tradition." The historical pedigree would be considered absurd in any other issue. The only relevant cites are during times of war or open rebellion--surely powers which do not translate to civil society. It would seem like these historians would count disarming the British at Yorktown or the Confederates at Appomattox as historical examples where people could be lawfully disarmed. Absurd.
Never, prior to the 20th century, was someone convicted of robbery, mayhem, or any indisputably violent crime and punished by lifetime disarmament. Yes, I think this result is an undesirable one, but it is a necessary consequence of Heller and Bruen, the ipse dixit of "presumptively lawful" restrictions notwithstanding.
Posted by: Jason T Gain | Jan 30, 2023 6:26:52 PM
Bill Otis foolishly said
"Prohibiting felons as a class from gun possession has a long, long historical pedigree"
My response? Utter and complete nonsense. I am not aware of any felon denial of guns prior to the Sullivan Law which the Supreme Court in Bruen overturned in June 2022. After that, I am only aware of the 1933 National Firearms Act as denying violent Exf-elons the RTKBA. I believe that was even declared unconstitutional, or at least it wasn't enforced, until the 1968 gun control Act (GCA) which denied all ex-felons the right to keep and bear.
Keep in mind that in 1791, when the second amendment was ratified, essentially all felons were guilty of a death penalty offense or at least a lifetime sense. Any person convicted of a lesser offense was called a misdemeanor, and such a person was eventually going to get out of prison. My understanding is that they automatically got their right to keep and bear arms back automatically, no paperwork required.
So apparently Bill Otis doesn't know very much about the history of the Second Amendment. If he did, he would realize that today's definition of the term felon has virtually nothing to do with the definition it had in 1791.
And therefore there is no reason to believe that the word felon, and its gradual change in meaning, would affect the rights granted by the Second Amendment.
I think that any interpretation of bruin that does not overturn all felon denials of guns will eventually fall.
Posted by: Jim Brll | Apr 29, 2023 4:04:45 AM
When someone receives a felony conviction, they are sentenced by the court who goes by the legislature laws. They cannot sentence you to a longer sentence than what the legislature says. To add other penalties over and above what the court give you no matter if he give you no jail time but could have given you 30 years but gave no jail but probation only, he gave the sentence he thought was right. To go above that and the Government to make it so you cannot vote, own a firearm for protection is a harsher sentence under the law.I believe most would have to agree with that. The sentence should also fit the crime in some way. If they used a gun, maybe than it would be right to take there gun rights away but if not, what does one have to do with the other? If you drink and drive, they take your license. Driving is a privilege not a constitutional right. The Supreme Court said in North Carolina vs. Pierce, you cannot receive a harsher sentence for exercising your constitutional right. Going to court is a constitutional right and if you have a felony theft charge that is non violent and you go to trial, that is a right, so how have they gotten away with taking more rights away that what the court gave you? What does felony theft have to do with guns if none were ever used? Red flag laws a unconstitutional since there is no due process. Protection Orders are a joke since you have no time to research the case and many people receive them to get even by a ex lover, girlfriend etc. You are lucky if it has not happened to you, because it is very easy to become reality.
Posted by: jon | May 5, 2023 11:09:43 AM
As much I agree with the results of Heller and Bruen, I think their deficient legal reasons with leave them to be overruled in the future alongside Roe and Casey. The "exceptions" were nothing but pure ipse dixit with no legal analysis, and none of them pass muster under the "history and tradition" test announced in Bruen. Same with the "commonly owned" firearms declaration in Heller. First, no law at the founding prohibited the possession of any weapon at all. Second, M-16s, which Scalia said are not commonly owned, are not simply because of the 1934 NFA. It seems that the law acts as its on constitutional justification.
Further how common is commonly owned? I read that 23 million AR-15s are owned in the U.S. Seems common. Only 6% of the population own them. Seems not common. Under Heller or Bruen, which statistic controls? Do we look at only gun owners or all people, even felons and children who are prohibited from owning them? Do we just look at the class of gun (e.g. "handgun" in Heller)? If so, why don't we just view an M-16 as a "rifle."? After all, Dick Heller's single action .22 revolver is likely not commonly owned, but handguns in general are. Nor is a .22 single action very suited to home defense or militia use. Why define his type of arm so broadly?
It seems that at least Roberts and Kavanaugh want to carve out possession of guns in the home and shall issue concealed carry but keep the absurd Heller limitations without analysis. Looks just like what conservatives accused liberals of doing with abortion.
Posted by: Jason Gain | May 26, 2023 3:08:57 PM
