GOA Rallying Members of Congress to Restore Gun Rights to Non-Violent Felons

Both the Bruen and Rahimi decisions made it clear that dangerous people could be stripped of their Second Amendment rights. While I’m not entirely sure that the Second Amendment says any such thing, I’m not exactly going to argue the point. Some people are dangerous, and I’m not going to lose sleep if we don’t make it easy for them to get a firearm.

It’s not like they won’t get one anyway, of course, but a couple of obstacles aren’t the end of the world.

But what about folks who aren’t dangerous?

The way we currently deal with those convicted of felonies is to lump them all together. However, there’s a big difference between someone who was a drug kingpin responsible for dozens of murders and the guy who lied on his taxes.

Non-violent felons are treated the same as violent felons, but they really shouldn’t be.

Now, Gun Owners of America, fresh off its Hearing Protection Act win in the House, is rallying members of Congress to address this miscarriage of justice.

From a press release:

Gun Owners of America (GOA) today called on its members and supporters nationwide to take immediate action in support of a proposed rule by the Trump Department of Justice that would restore Second Amendment rights to countless Americans unjustly barred under the decades-old “Schumer Amendment.” 

Enacted in 1992, the Schumer Amendment defunded the only federal process available (other than an unlikely pardon) to federally restore firearm rights, effectively imposing a lifetime ban on gun ownership for individuals with certain non-violent convictions or temporary mental health commitments—even if such persons pose no ongoing threat and have long since been rehabilitated. For over 30 years, this provision blocked the ATF from processing any rights restoration requests, denying due process and violating the constitutional rights of countless Americans. 

Now, for the first time in over three decades, the DOJ promulgated a rule that would reassign the authority to restore gun rights away from the ATF and back to the Attorney General and Department of Justice. 

GOA, Gun Owners Foundation (GOF), the Tennessee Firearms Association (TFA), and the Firearms Regulatory Accountability Coalition (FRAC) submitted a joint comment which outlines the legal foundation for restoring rights, noting: 

• That Congress, through § 925(c), expressly authorized the Attorney General to grant relief to individuals who are not dangerous and whose restoration is “in the public interest”; 
• That the Schumer amendment’s decades-long funding blockade represented a constitutional abuse, unjustly blocking citizens from reclaiming a core right; 
• That restoring this process is critical to treating the Second Amendment as a first-class right, not subject to the whims of unelected agency officials; 
• That non-violent, non-dangerous persons have never historically been stripped of their right to keep and bear arms in this country’s tradition. 

GOA has provided a pre-written comment that its members can submit directly to the DOJ during the public comment period: 

“I strongly support the Department of Justice’s proposed rule to allow for federal restoration of gun rights pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 925(c). It is not permissible to permanently deny millions of Americans the right to keep and bear arms, when many of them were convicted decades ago of relatively nonserious and entirely nonviolent crimes, or temporarily received mental health treatment and have long since recovered. Yet since the Schumer Amendment took effect in 1992, untold thousands have been denied due process and prohibited from exercising their Second Amendment rights. I urge the DOJ to move forward and fully implement this rule through the creation of a formal process to ensure speedy rights restoration.” 

In a statement, Erich Pratt, Senior Vice President of Gun Owners of America, said, “This is a monumental breakthrough after decades of injustice. GOA has long fought for the restoration of constitutional rights stripped by Chuck Schumer’s amendment, and the Trump administration’s rule is a powerful step in the right direction.” He added, “We urge our members to speak up and flood the DOJ with support.”

Honestly, this should be a no-brainer, especially as many Democrats in Congress want to restore voting rights to felons who are still in prison. If they’re good to go for voting even while locked up, how can you reasonably oppose restoring gun rights to non-violent felons who have never been a danger to anyone?

Don’t get me wrong, I know they’ll still oppose it and think they’re the reasonable ones–I expect the media, for example, to refuse to differentiate between violent felons and non-violent felons in their headlines, knowing good and well most people will react based on that–but there’s nothing reasonable about it.

At some point, we have to recognize that if we’re going to say someone has paid their debt to society, we need to start acting like the debt is actually paid. For non-violent felons, that means restoring their rights. All of them.

GOA is trying to rally the troops to make this happen, and I urge you to step up and help. There’s right and there’s wrong. Yes, gray areas exist, but this isn’t one of them.