What is also certain is that the punishment should fit the crime. Jaywalking doesn’t carry a 20-year prison sentence and first-degree murder does not result in probation.
When the punishment involves the Second Amendment, it is important that the sentence also respect the constitutional rights of the convicted. Again, no one questions that certain criminal acts mean the lifetime forfeiture of gun rights.
But what about a misdemeanor act that did not involve a firearm, violence or physical harm? Should the penalty be the stripping of gun rights forever?
That is the question being answered in Williams v. Garland. This case challenges the provisions of the federal Gun Control Act that institute a lifetime ban on Second Amendment rights involving even a single misdemeanor conviction.
The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) recently filed a motion for a summary judgment in the case. This issue centers around the driving under the influence conviction of Edward Williams in 2005.
After being tried, Williams was convicted of DUI in violation of Pennsylvania law. He already had a prior DUI non-conviction four years earlier which was later expunged. The new conviction in 2005 was a first-degree misdemeanor carrying a maximum five-year sentence.
Williams, however, was never imprisoned. Instead, he was put on house arrest for 90 days and ordered to pay costs. He was fined $1,500 and required to complete a drug and alcohol treatment program under the mandatory minimum sentence.
In May 2022, the Third Circuit confirmed the district court’s previous ruling based on a precedent already established. However, this decision came before the monumental New York Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
As every gun rights enthusiast knows, this ruling established a historical test that all gun control laws must pass to be constitutional. The FPC argued that the Third Circuit panel’s decision violated the Bruen standard which “forbids the disarmament of peaceable persons like Williams.”
Fast forward to the current motion for a summary judgment filed by the FPC.
It states, “There can be no dispute, post-Bruen, that there is nothing in the Constitution’s text nor the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation…that supports the categorical ban that the prior and continuing enforcement of Defendant’s law imposes on Mr. Williams.”
The FPCAF’s Director of Constitutional Studies, Joseph Greenlee, noted that Bruen established that statutes concerning weapons are only valid if “consistent with the nation’s tradition of firearm regulation.”
Clearly there is no basis in the legal tradition of the nation to subject a person convicted of a non-violent misdemeanor to a lifetime ban from possessing guns. But like many issues swirling through the judicial system, this one could also ultimately be settled by the Supreme Court.
In a separate case in June, the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with plaintiffs that a man convicted of food stamp fraud in 1995 should not have received the lifetime ban. Bryan Range was only sentenced to probation, but the potential five-year prison term he faced fell under the Pennsylvania ban on possession of firearms for anyone facing at least a year behind bars.
This decision, of course, came after Bruen and reversed a lower court ruling. The appeals court studied gun laws dating back to the 18th century and found no precedent for such penalties.
Judges noted that those who participated in the 1787 tax rebellion in Massachusetts known as Shay’s Rebellion were eligible to have their firearms returned after three years.
The summary judgment in Williams v. Garland should come soon.
