DOJ Aims To Restore Gun Rights

MELYNDA VINCENT, A Utah social worker specializing in drug harm reduction, was convicted of bank fraud in 2008 because she paid for groceries with a bad check. Seventeen years later, Vincent is still not allowed to own a gun or even temporarily possess one.

- Jacob Sullum

A new Justice Department program aims to help people like Vincent by reviving a moribund relief process for Americans who have lost their gun rights due to criminal convictions. That is good news for Second Amendment advocates, because it promises to ameliorate the impact of an illogical, constitutionally dubious law that deprives people of the right to armed self-defense even when they pose no plausible threat to public safety. It is also good news for criminal justice reformers, because it addresses a lifelong penalty that irrationally punishes nonviolent offenders long after they have served their formal sentences.

Under 18 USC 922(g)(1), which Congress enacted in 1968 as part of the Gun Control Act, it is a felony to receive or possess a firearm if you have been convicted of a crime punishable by more than a year of incarceration. It doesn't matter if it was a violent crime, how long ago it was committed, or what sentence was actually imposed.

Several federal appeals courts have said that disability may be unconstitutional as applied to specific nonviolent offenders. But until recently, the only recourse for people who could not afford such litigation was a federal or state pardon—an iffy prospect.