Not all felonies are created equal. Yes, all are crimes, and all should be punished, but the question is, when do we stop punishing them? Both violent and non-violent felons are prohibited from ever owning a gun again unless their rights are restored.
For the violent ones who haven't reformed, it rarely does much to stop them. For the non-violent ones, though, that's a bit different.
See, non-violent felonies include things like bouncing a check above a certain amount or stretching things too far to pay less in taxes. These aren't the actions of hardened criminals, and those caught and convicted of such offenses aren't likely to turn around and become violent all of a sudden.
However, they're still prohibited, at least for now.
While the Department of Justice is soon going to start restoring gun rights to some, the truth is that non-violent felons shouldn't be barred from owning a gun in the first place. That's not just me talking, either. That's Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier's take.
Under Florida law, convicted felons are banned from possessing firearms, but Attorney General James Uthmeier is now contending that the law is unconstitutional when it relates to convicted felons who are considered “nondangerous” and have not committed a violent crime.
That opinion — never previously offered by a Florida attorney general — is being lavishly praised by Second Amendment advocates.
“We at Florida Gun Rights completely agree with Attorney General Uthmeier’s decision,” said Logan Edge, executive director Florida Gun Rights. “The founders never envisioned citizens losing their right to self-defense for life over nonviolent crimes.”
Uthmeier issued the opinion to the Florida First District Court of Appeal last month regarding the case of Christopher Morgan, originally convicted in Pennsylvania in 2007 of carrying a firearm without a state license, a third-degree felony in that state.
Flash forward to September 2022, when Morgan got stopped by a Tallahassee police officer for appearing to drive above the speed limit. After he was pulled over, he informed the officer that he had a pistol in the central console of his car, and volunteered that he had been convicted of the Pennsylvania felony, which the officer was able to confirm. The officer found an unloaded Glock 19 with two magazines. Morgan was arrested for possessing the firearm.
Morgan tried to argue in court that the law prohibiting gun ownership by non-violent felons was unconstitutional, and Uthmeier disagreed at the time. Now, he's reversed that position. He said the change in opinion came after "studied reflection," which might be true, or he might have caught pro-gun heat over it and decided it's a good move to change positions now.
I honestly don't know, nor do I particularly care, because whatever brought him to this current stance, it's the one most consistent with the Second Amendment.
Back in the day, felons didn't lose their gun rights. If they were a danger to society, they were kept locked up for longer, and if it was bad enough, well, rope was cheap. The idea of prohibiting anyone from having their Second Amendment rights is relatively new on the American stage, and it kind of runs contrary to that whole "shall not be infringed" thing.
While I get that violent felons are always going to be viewed differently, and that there is a historic analog for disarming people who are viewed to be a danger to society, non-violent felons aren't in that same category.
They should serve their sentences and deal with the ramifications of their actions, but lifetime bans against them owning a gun is beyond serving a sentence. It's them being punished indefinitely, as if they're at the same level of danger as a serial killer or something. It's ridiculous.
