Non-Violent Felons in Arkansas May Get Their Gun Rights Back

As it stands, we currently disarm anyone convicted of a felony. They’re disarmed for life unless they get their rights restored by a court.

Now, for a lot of people, this sounds like a good idea. Do we really want someone who has multiple aggravated assault convictions getting a gun to do it all over again? 

But the problem is that not all felonies are created equal. While violent felonies are a legitimate concern and history shows that a lot of those folks go on to commit more felonies, but a lot of felons aren’t violent and are never going to be violent.

Should they be prevented from owning a gun? I’d say not.

It seems some lawmakers in Arkansas agree and are looking to change things.

 In just a little over a month, lawmakers in Arkansas will have the chance to decide on whether or not they will approve expanding and restoring gun rights to non-violent felons.

On Monday, Republican State Representative Scott Richardson of Bentonville introduced House Bill 1057.

If approved, it would restore the right for nonviolent felons to possess a firearm.

“I like to use the analogy of a hot check. If an individual created a hot check 30 years ago and changed their ways, now it’s been 10 years, and they’ve not created any more challenges for society. They should have that opportunity,” Richardson described.

Now, Richardson hopes that with addition of a few changes like adding more restrictions on who immediately can possess a firearm will make a difference.

“We feel like by adding the 10-year cooling off period so that an individual can validate that they have changed, it provides an opportunity to address those concerns, both on the House and the Senate,” Richardson added.

Now, I’m not overly thrilled about a 10-year “cooling off” period, but that’s going to make it more palatable to a lot of people, and that’s going to be necessary to see this one get passed.

And really, let’s talk about that hot check analogy.

I happen to have a family member who has since passed, but who got a felony charge for just that. She was trying to float a check until payday; rolling the dice, as it were, and she came up snake eyes. That resulted in a felony charge for her.

Now, was she a habitual violator? No. It was a one-time thing from nearly 50 years ago. In the time between then and her passing about a decade back, the only laws she may have intentionally broke were traffic laws–and really, aren’t those more in the way of suggestions anyway?

Seriously, though, she was a law-abiding person who just tried to do something that millions of others did back then and just misjudged her chances of covering things.

Should she have been denied her gun rights indefinitely? Was she a danger to society? Not really.

Neither are a lot of other non-violent felons.

But do you know what’ll be great about this? Seeing all the people who want felons to vote suddenly freaking out because such dangerous people might be able to buy guns.