There’s something inherently wrong about lifetime gun bans for misdemeanors.
Even if you think that lifetime gun bans are warranted for criminal behavior, why a misdemeanor of any kind? It would seem to me that if the behavior was so bad that it warranted a lifetime suspension of a civil liberty, it should be severe enough to be a felony in the first place. Since felons already have a lifetime ban that only just now has a pathway for being lifted, that seems like an easy fix.
The problem is that anti-gunners have been doing more and more to try and get states to issue bans for misdemeanors. Federally, we already do this with domestic violence, and while have no interest in supporting domestic violence offenders, it just seems that the issue would be better resolved by locking domestic abusers up for far longer than we currently do, rather than giving someone a slap on the wrist, but a lifetime gun ban.
Washington state does something gross with DUI arrests. You can actually lose your gun rights over misdemeanor DUIs, which prompted one law firm to file an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to hear the case.
The Biazzo–Huang brief supports certiorari but focuses on issues the petition did not fully develop.
The brief makes four core arguments.
First, Washington defines the disarmed class by borrowing a definition from its DUI sentencing statute. The brief argues that this creates the same kind of mismatch the Supreme Court identified in Hemani, where the government’s disarmament category was borrowed from another statutory scheme animated by different concerns.
Second, the brief argues that Washington’s law fails Wolford’s historical-inference test. Laws against carrying while intoxicated regulated conduct at the time and place of danger. Washington’s law reaches a sober person, in the home, for years.
Third, the brief argues that the Washington Supreme Court could not build a valid historical tradition by combining analogues that it acknowledged might each be insufficient standing alone.
Fourth, the brief argues that Heller’s reference to “longstanding prohibitions” on firearm possession by felons and the mentally ill does not resolve this case because Washington’s law is recent, misdemeanor-based, and not directed at felons.
It’s the Wolford example I find to be particularly interesting, because they’re right. A prohibition against carrying while drinking or drunk is consistent with the historical record. This goes beyond this, prohibiting the carrying of a gun for the rest of someone’s life, even if they never drink another drop of alcohol again. It’s not an analog, and as the brief notes, even the state of Washington knows that it’s not enough of an analog, so they had to stack up others to try to make a case that can’t stand on its own.
Which is a problem in and of itself.
Honestly, I respect the law firm for doing this. It’s a shame they felt obligated to write a second about how this isn’t political, because it shouldn’t be necessary. Unfortunately, I see the need.
Then again, this entire case shouldn’t be needed, yet here we are.
Look, is it irresponsible to drive while intoxicated? Absolutely. Is someone doing it more than once indicating a lack of good judgment? You betcha. Does that mean they should lose their rights over it? No!
That’s not how our system is supposed to work, and I’m not going to pretend that rights should be stripped away because of irresponsibility. If they were, people like Jim Acosta would never be able to work in media again.
Alright, I might be convincing myself this isn’t a terrible idea, but only if we apply it across the board, which will never happen, and it probably shouldn’t even if it would silence at least two-thirds of the mainstream news media, and I’m lowballing here.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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