A Target on Your Back, A Right Taken Away
There is a striking irony in the Trump administration’s new effort to restore firearm rights to people with felony convictions. Attorney General Todd Blanche says the Second Amendment should not be treated as a “second-class right” and that people should not be permanently deprived of a constitutional right without considering whether they actually pose a danger to public safety. The new federal process will allow many people with past felony convictions to seek restoration of their federal firearm rights.
But there is one group the new rule specifically singles out for presumptive exclusion: people required to register as sex offenders.
If the justification for restoring firearm rights is that a person should not permanently lose a constitutional right merely because of a past conviction and that individualized consideration should focus on whether the person presents a current danger why should a person remain categorically disfavored simply because they are required to register?
There is an additional irony that policymakers rarely acknowledge: people on sex-offender registries are themselves frequent targets of vigilantism, harassment, assaults, violence and murder precisely because their identities and addresses are publicly exposed.
The government tells registrants that they must live under a system that publicly identifies where they live, what car they drive, where they work or travel. It creates a permanent digital label that can follow someone for decades or for life. Yet when those same people face the predictable consequences of that exposure, the government is prepared to say they are presumptively unworthy of the ability to defend themselves. According to this article, “Some groups will “remain presumptively ineligible for relief,” including undocumented immigrants, violent felons and registered sex offenders.”
FAC is not arguing that every registrant should automatically have the right to possess a firearm. We are arguing that constitutional rights should be evaluated based on the individual — not by an automatic lifetime label attached to a person because of a conviction. If the government believes that current dangerousness matters when deciding whether someone should possess a firearm, then that principle should apply consistently.
A constitutional right shouldn’t disappear simply because a person carries a label.
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One of the problems here in the state of Florida is that when you are accused and convicted of a sex offense, you are automatically branded a Violent Felony Offender, even if you were simply convicted of an online crime and never touched anyone. Violent felony offenders would not qualify to get gun rights back. The same reasoning that they won’t let us vote while other people with previous felonies are allowed to vote now. It’s all about the branding and it all bullcrap. I’m a military combat vet. I fired 100s of guns, and I am very skilled, controlled d disciplined. I am the Ideal.person to legally own a gun, but a brand keeps me from it
Machiavelli
While I agree with you, let’s focus first and foremost getting off this damn registration scheme they have held us on for life. I was in my 20’s when arrested and now in my 60s. What does that tell you? Haven’t had another crime since but the authorities state myself and others are a future threat to society and must be held accountable for life on the registry.
Do they really think a registration site is going to stop someone who is hell bound on committing another crime? If I was going to slip up I think it would have been somewhere in that 40 year gap don’t you think? If I (And all of us) haven’t learned their lesson by now, then when if ever?
Those who are going to offend are going to but do not punish the rest of us because of a few bad apples.