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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its simple.. when something doesn’t fit the narrative you want it to fit you simply change the dictionary meaning until it does. it isnt violent? just say it is until it is.. it is retroactive? you simply say it isn’t until it isnt.. its punishment? simply say it isn’t punishment until it isn’t.. government is fantastic at linguistic gymnastics.. Batman wasn’t wrong in making the prosecutor a villian and naming him two face..
they don’t even try to hide it any more and yet so many still refuse to see it. At this juncture anyone who claims to not see the true intent is to create vigilantism simply just doesn’t want to see it.
Under the Florida Registry scheme they put the targets on our backs and provide the weapons to the vigilants. If this is not a not a covert application of Lynch’s Law, I don’t know what could be!.